Robert Owen

ROBERT OWEN

Social Idealist

BY

ROWLAND HILL HARVEY

Edited, with a Foreword, by

JOHN WALTON CAUGHEY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES
1949

University of California Ptjblioations in History
Editors (Los Angeles) * J. W. Caxjghey, U. K Bjorn,
E H Eisher, C. N. Howard

Yolume 38

Submitted by editors February 27, 1948
Issued July 15, 1949
Price, cloth, $3.75 ; paper, $2 75

University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles
California

•o

Cambridge University Press
London, England

COPYRIGHT, 1949,

BY THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA

FOREWORD

The casual students in his classes knew Eowland Hill Harvey as a
sincere scholar, an inveterate reader, a veritable fountain of infor-
mation and ideas, and, withal, a bluff, hearty, down-to-earth person.

For twenty years, at the University of California at Los Angeles,
successive generations of students flocked to his courses. Whether
the announced theme was English history. United States history,
or economic history, they were alternately surprised at the depth
of his erudition and at the homely illustrations that he liked to
draw from daily life.

Many of these students followed him to his office, and often to
his home, to pursue in further conversation some of the vistas that
his lectures had opened. These young people, and many of his col-
leagues, too, quickly discovered his warm interest in individual
man as well as in mankind in the abstract and in history.

Not all historians allow their researches to reflect their own
dominant characteristics. It occasionally happens that a mild and
peaceful soul devotes himself to the study of Indian wars, a land-
locked researcher to the feats of maritime exploration, or a scholar
with great dullness of pen to the life and works of a master stylist.
In happy contrast, the research career that Harvey charted for
himself appears to have been altogether appropriate to his parts.

His major projects were three in number : a biography, Samuel
Gompers: Champion of the Toiling Masses^ published by Stanford
University Press in 1935 ; the life of Owen here presented ; and a
study of the Federation of Western Miners, which was about half
completed at the time of his death. The obvious thread that unites
them is that of the workingman and the problems of his betterment.
That this* theme was of more than academic interest to him is sug-
gested by his engagement in social work near Hull House in
Chicago and subsequently in Los Angeles. In more fundamental
fashion it harmonized with his conviction that every human being
is entitled to full opportunity to make the most of his talents and
his capacities, tempered, however, by the necessity in our society
of consonance with the welfare of the group. This was the philos-
ophy he lived by. An enthusiasm for it shows through in certain
passages of this book.

[T]

VI

Foreword

Were the author alive, he would, I am sure, express thanks to
various persons and institutions for assistance in the preparation
of this work. Grants in aid of his researches were advanced by the
University of California and by the Social Science Eesearch Coun-
cil, though it was largely on his own that he went to Manchester,
New Lanark, New Harmony, and the other scenes of Owen’s career.
Librarians and other custodians of knowledge, both in this country
and abroad, lent their customary generous assistance. Other asso-
ciates helped and doubtless would have been thanked expressly.
To those who had a part, these Vords will serve as a token.

My role in connection with this book has been chiefly mechani-
cal. Shortly after Harvey’s death in 1943, his widow, Claire, asked
me to take charge of placement of the manuscript and of seeing it
through the press, which of course I was glad to do. In so far as
possible, my aim has been to carry out what I took to be the author’s
intentions. There may well be passages which he would have im-
proved in proof. The ideas and the story, at any rate, are as he
presented them, and my task was merely the routine of supervising
their conversion into print.

John Walton Caughey

CONTENTS

CHAPTES PAGE

I. Out of Wales 1

II. Owen’s England 12

III. The Power of Circumstance 20

TV. The New Heaven and the New Earth 30

V. The Institution for the Porjnation of Character 36

VI. The Poor 50

YII. The Conscience of the Rich 62

VIII. The Children of the Mills 72

IX. The Whole World 77

X. The Adventure Magnificent 92

XI. The Mad Utopians 108

XII. The Pair Side of New Harmony 126

XIII. Baiting the Clergy 131

XIV. A Message to Mexico 145

XV. God and the New Social System 154

XVI. Into the Whirlwind 162

XVII. Labor for Labor 183

XVIII. The Grand National 191

XIX. The Marriages of the Priesthood 199

XX. Charity and Malice 211

XXI. The Monkey Dress and the Virgin Queen 226

XXII. The Eternal Vision 236

XXIII. The Millennium 244

Bibliography 251

CHAPTER I

OUT OF WALES

-|fc -|-EWTOW]sr, WALES, is a market town lying along the wooded
I banks of the upper Severn Valley. At the close of the
JL ^ eighteenth century it was a quiet little place of one thou-
sand inhabitants living in houses built of great oaken beams hewn
of the timber taken from the wooded hills near by. A single busi-
ness street ran the length of the to^^wn, and in a little house on this
street Robert Owen was born, May 14, 1771.

The modern Newtown has grown to a community of about seven
thousand persons, many of them engaged in the weaving of flannel
goods. But, as in the days when Owen was a boy, the farmers drive
their sheep and cattle through the main street on market days.
The house where Owen was born has been torn down to make way
for a bank, but a room has been set aside as a museum in his
memory. Next door is the Bear’s Head Inn where Owen died. It has
been rebuilt since then, but it still offers food and shelter to the
traveler.

The parish church where Owen worshiped as a child has fallen
in ruins, but the tower is being restored. In the yard, close to the
crumbling wall of the church, is the tomb of the Welsh reformer.

Little significance may be attached to the early environment of
Owen but much to the fact that he was launched into the world at
a most momentous era in the long history of England. During
Owen’s childhood, men tilled the soil, spun, and wove as their fore-
fathers had done. But in England forces were already at work
destined to break the crust of the old order and remold it nearer
to the pattern of our own civilization.

Only the desire to find some clue that might help to explain the
mystery of Owen’s life leads us to linger over his early years Un-
fortunately, the only record of his childhood is that left by Owen
himself. And, although Owen stands out as the very soul of honor,
he could never be regarded as detached when writing or speak-
ing of his own life. Like most great reformers, he possessed little
sense of humor. Therefore, his record of the early years of his life
must be taken with many reservations.

[ 1 ]

2

Robert Owen

He tells ns in his autobiography that his father was an iron-
monger and saddler and that his mother came of farmer stock. Ac-
cording to Owen, his father was the leading man of his parish and
well versed in its finances and business affairs. Robert was the
second youngest of a family of seven children. His parents were
poor and his opportunities slight. However, he did attend a school
in Newtown kept by a Mr Thickness, where he learned to read and
write. Owen declares in his autobiography that he was a most en-
thusiastic pupil :

In schools in these small towns it*was considered a good education if one
could read fl-uently, write a legible hand and understand the first rules of arith-
metic And this I have reason to believe was the extent of Mr. Thicknesses
qualification for a schoolmaster, because when I had acquired these small
rudiments of leammg at the age of seven, he applied to my father for per-
mission that I should become his assistant and ^^usher,’^ as from that time I
was called while I remained m school. And thenceforth my schooling was to be
repaid by my ushership. As I remained at school two years longer, those two
years were lost to me, except that I thus early acquired the habit of teaching
others what I knew

But at this period I was fond of and had a strong passion for reading every-
thing which fell in my way. As I was known to and knew every family in the
town, I had the libraries of the clergyman, physician, and lawyer, — ^the learned
men of the town — ^thrown open to me, with permission to take home any volume
which I liked, and I made full use of the liberty given to me.

Among the books which I selected at this period were Eobinson Crusoe,
Philip Quarle, Pilgrim’s Progress, Paradise Lost, Harvey’s Meditations among
the Tombs, Young’s Night Thoughts, Eiehardson’s and all other standard
novels. I believed every word of them to be true, and was therefore deeply
interested j and I generally finished a volume daily. Then I read Cook’s and
the circumnavigators’ voyages, — ^the history of the world, — ^Eollin’s ancient
history, — and all the hves I could meet with of the philosophers and great men.^

This appears like a pretty strong diet for a boy of eight or nine
years of age. It places him in the same class with Macaulay and
Mill. It will be recalled that Macaulay wrote a Compendium of
Universal History before he was eight years old and that John
Stuart Mill had read a staggering list of Greek, Latin, and English
works at the same age. But Owen at no time in his life showed any
literary ability, nor did his speeches and writings indicate that he
had ever read much. Perhaps his very lack of bookishness gave him
the supreme confidence in his schemes of reform that carried him

^ Eobert Owen, Life of Eohert Owen^ I, 3. Hereafter this work will be cited
as Bobert Owen, Life.

3

Out of Wales

far. In any case, it is very possible that he handled the books he
mentioned as having read and that in his old age, looking back over
the events of his childhood, he dramatized them to fit the rest of
his career.

Owen attached much importance to the following incident of
his childhood. One morning, being in a very great hurry, he hastily
swallowed a quantity of hot breakfast food called flummery. The
result was that he fainted. For along time his parents gave him up
for dead. When he recovered, he was left with a tender stomach
that had to be nursed with exceeding care. Owen thought it gave
him the habit of close observation and continual reflection, because
he was compelled to study the effects of certain foods on his stomach.

It is significant that Owen seemed to be much given to fainting.
In his autobiography he gives two other instances when he fainted,
in neither of which does the cause seem sufficient. In persons of
genius, fainting seems to be very common In Owen’s case it could
not have been due to lack of vitality, for he was robust enough to
leave home at the age of ten, and at no time in his long life does it
appear that he was unable to work.

Owen would have us believe that he early speculated on the truth-
fulness of different religious sects :

At tMs period, probably when I was between eight and nine years of age,
three maiden ladies became intimate in our family, and they were Methodists.
They took a great fancy to me, and gave me many of their books to read. As
I was religiously inclined, they were very desirous to convert me to their pecu-
liar faith. I read and studied the books they gave me with great attention;
but as I read religious works of all parties, I became surprised, first at the
opposition between the different sects of Christians, afterwards at the deadly
hatred between the Jews, Christians, Mohomedans, Hindoos, Chinese, &e., &c.,
and between these and what they called Pagans and Infidels. The study of
these contending faiths, and their deadly hatred to each other, began to create
doubts in my mind respecting the truth of any one of these divisions. While
studying and thinking with great earnestness upon these subjjects, I wrote three
sermons, and I was called the little parson. These sermons I kept until I met
with Sterne’s works, m which I found among his sermons three so much like
them in idea and turn of mind, that it occurred to me as I read them that I
should be considered a plagiarist, and without thought, as I could not bear any
such suspicion, I hastily threw them mto the fire ; which I often after regretted,
as I should like to know now how I then thought and expressed myself on such
subjects.

But certain it is that my reading religious works, combined with my other
readings, compelled me to feel strongly at ten years of age that there must be

4 Bobert Owen

sometMng f -andameiitally wrong in all religions, as they had been taught np to
that period.^

It seems almost incredible that a child of eight or nine years could
have been capable of reaching skeptical conclusions on religions
matters. Here it is again obvions that Owen has not succeeded in
giving an objective treatment of his early life. But perhaps this is
expecting too much. It would be presuming enough on our belief
in his precocity as a child to have him reading and writing sermons.

There is one comforting element in running through Owen’s
autobiography with all the ro§y pictures that he draws of a child
who grew up overnight ; and it is that we know more of Owen, the
man, who wrote of himself in this vein. Not only did he have little
sense of humor, but his respect for downright facts was slight.
However, we are unquestionably dealing with a man of genius.
Maturity came early; at the age of twenty he was manager of a mill.

Owen’s childhood was indeed brief. A few years of racing over
the green hiUs of Wales with boys of his own age, an ever so short
acquaintance with school, and then at ten years of age he was
packed off to the great city — ^to London.

My father took me to Welshpool, [Owen wrote], and thence I went to take
coach for London at Shrewsbury, which was then the nearest place to New-
town to which there was any public conveyance to go to London. The coach
left Shrewsbury at night, and an outside place had been taken for me, with the
expectation that I might travel inside during the night. The proprietor, who
knew my family, was going to put me inside, when some ill-tempered man, who
had discovered that I had paid only for an outside place, refused to allow me
to enter. It was dark, and I could not see the objector, nor discover how crowded
the coach might be ; — ±ot coaches then carried six inside. I was glad after-
wards that I did not know who this man was . .

And so tbe little boy with the long nose rode tbrougk tbe cMlly
night to London Town. Wrapped up in his greatcoat, he sometimes
fell asleep as the big coach rumbled over the countryside. His little
round head would then sink deeper and deeper into his coat collar ;
but when an inn was reached, he would sit bolt upright and take
in every corner of the scene. Burly porters, swaying lanterns,
steaming horses, and bristling passengers, all milled before him.
The little Welsh boy of ten was learning the ways of the world out-
side of Newtown.

® Robert Owen, Life, I, 3-4.

3 Ibid., 11.

5

Out of Wales

Robert went to stay with Ms brother in London, but only until
he had secured a position as an apprentice to James McG-uffog, who
kept a shop for the sale of fine fabrics in Stamford. He was to serve
without pay for one year ; the second year he was to receive £8 and
the third year £10. According to custom, he was to be given board
and lodging in his master’s house.

Robert’s life at McGuffog’s seemed to have been very happy. The
proprietor was an honest Scotchman who took a fatherly interest
in the boy. Being an excellent man of business, he gave Owen a
good grounding in solid business principles. It was probably dur-
ing this time that Owen actually came to be a skeptic in religion :

I was all tMs time eadeavoaring to fiad out the true religion^ and was greatly
puzzled for some time "by finding all of every sect over the world, of which I
read, or of which I heard from the pulpits, claim each for themselves to be in
possession of the true religion. I studied, and studied, and carefully compared
one with another, for I was very religiously inclined, and desired most anx-
iously to be in the right way. But the more I heard, read, and refieeted, the
more I became dissatisfied with Christian, Jew, Mohomedan, Hindoo, Chinese,
and Pagan. I began seriously to study the foundation of all of them, and to
ascertain on what prmciple they were based. Before my investigations were
concluded, I was satisfied that one and all had emanated from the same source,
and their varieties from the same false imaginations of our early ancestors ;
imaginations formed when men were ignorant of their own nature, were devoid
of experience, and were governed by their random eon;)ectures, which were al-
most always, at first, like their notions of the fixedness of the earth, far from
the earth.^

Owen passed tbrougb tMs religious crisis when he was about
fourteen or fifteen years old ; henceforth, he was an unbeliever. But
before this had happened, he, the serious one, had been much im-
pressed with the godlessness that prevailed in his neighborhood.
Therefore, he wrote a letter to William Pitt, the prime minister,
asking that the government take steps for a better observance of the
Sabbath.

Great was his delight when a short time later the government
issued a proclamation calling for the more strict keeping of the
Sabbath.

After a comparatively short stay with the McGuffogs, Owen, on
the recommendation of his master, obtained a position with Flint
and Palmer in London. Probably the boy had advanced with Me-

m%d., 16 .

6

Bohert Owen

Guffog to the point where the latter felt he could in justice no
longer keep him. In his new situation he acted as an assistant,
receiving a salary of £25 a year. Owen wrote thus of his work :

... to the assistants in the busy establishment the duties were very onerous
They were up and had breakfasted and were dressed to receive customers in
the shop at eight o^cloek; — and dressing then was no slight affair. Boy as I
was then, I had to wait my turn for the hairdresser to powder and pomatum
and curl my hair, for I had two large curls on each side, and a stiff pigtail, and
until all this was very nicely and systematically done, no one could thmk of
appearing before a customer. Between eight and nine the shop began to fill
with purchasers, and their number ^increased until it was crowded to excess,
although a large apartment, and this continued until late in the evening ,* usually
until ten, or half -past ten, during all the spring months. Dinner and tea were
hastily taken, — two or three, sometimes only one, escaping at a time to take
what he or she could the most easily swallow, and returning to take the places
of others who were serving. The only regular meals at this season were our
breakfasts, except on Sundays, on which days a good dinner was always pro-
vided, and was much enjoyed. But when the purchasers left at ten or half -past
ten, before the shop could be quite clear a new part of the business was to be
commenced The articles dealt in a haberdashery were innumerable, and these
when exposed to the customers were tossed and tumbled and unfolded in the
utmost confusion and disorder, and there was no time or space to put anything
right and in order during the day. This was a work to be performed with closed
doors after the customers had been shut out at eleven o^clock,* and it was often
two o^clock in the morning before the goods in the shop had been put in order
and replaced to be ready for the next day^s similar proceedings. Frequently
at two o'clock in the morning, after being actively engaged on foot all day
from eight o'clock in the morning, I have scarcely been able with the aid of
the bannisters to go up stairs to bed. And then I had but five hours for sleep

Owen stayed on in spite of the hard work. However, after the
busy season was over, life took on an easier character. There was a
chance to make friends and to enjoy walks and talks. But he had
already asked his friend, Mr. Neptinstall of Lndgate Hill, to find
a new job for him.

In due conrse a position opened np with a Mr. Satterfield at Man-
chester, and thither Owen journeyed. This was the most momentous
step of his life. He was moving on to the center of a stage where
a drama of magnificent proportions was about to be performed,
and Owen himself was destined to play a stellar part in it. England
was undergoing a revolution more profound than any that has ever
shaken a people. The old mold of industrial society was broken,
and a new mold based on machine production was taking its place.

Ibid., 19.

7

Out of Wales

Into this new world stepped Owen — afresh, eager, unhistorieal,
and without traditions. Keen and clear-headed, he saved money,
saw opportunities, and took advantage of them. In an incredibly
short time, he had formed a partnership with a man named J ones
for the manufacture of Crompton’s mules — machines for spinning
cotton. This adventure in manufacturing was a short-lived one,
but it netted Owen three of the machines and some other equip-
ment. With these he started a spinning establishment of his own.
He hired a building, employed three men to work the machines,
and at the age of nineteen had become a cotton spinner on his way
to a fortune.

While directing this enterprise, he learned that a Mr. Drink-
water, a rich cotton spinner, needed a manager for his mill. With-
out delay Owen marched off to apply for the job. After being shown
into Drinkwater’s office, Owen asked him for the position. Drink-
water looked up at the young man with almost a start of surprise.
He had expected to see a man of mature years applying for this
job. But instead there stood before him a boyish-looking figure
with a certain diffidence of manner evidenced by little movements
of his hands and legs Drinkwater started the dialogue :

^^You are too young.^’

^^That was an objection made to me four or five years ago, bnt I did not
expect it would be made to me now.’^

“How old are you?”

“Twenty in May this year.”

“How often do you get drunk in the week?”

“I was never drunk m my Hfe.”

“WThat salary do you ask?”

“Three hundred a year.”

“What? Three hundred a year^ I have had this morning I know not how
many seeking the situation, and I do not think that all their askings together
would amount to what you require.”

“I cannot be governed by what others ask, and I cannot take less. I am now
making that sum by my own business.”

“Can you prove that to me ?”

“Yes, I will show you the business and my books.”®

Oweu then led Drinkwater off to his factory and convinced him
that he had not been merely boasting. The result was that Owen
obtained a contract with Drinkwater on his own terms and started

27 .

8

Robert Owen

out on his career as a great cotton spinner. So outstanding was
Owen^s success in managing Drinkwater’s mill that in a short time
his employer offered him a partnership. Owen accepted this new
proposition, but shortly thereafter Drinkwater regretted the new
agreement with his manager. A proposal of marriage was made to
Drinkwater’s daughter by Samuel Oldknow, a rich muslin manu-
facturer, and with the proposal came a business offer from Old-
know. He suggested that his prospective father-in-law and himself
enter into partnership. However, Owen^s agreement with Drink-
water stood in the way.

In a dramatic scene between young Owen and Drinkwater after
the latter had asked Owen for his terms to end the partnership, the
proud young man, seeing that he was in the way, drew the articles
of partnership from his pocket and tossed them into the open fire.
He then resigned his position, much to the embarrassment of his
employer, who begged him to stay on until he could secure another
man. Owen tells us that he did stay for a time, but in 1794 he
joined two other firms in establishing a new company known as
the Chorlton Twist Company.

As it turned out, Drinkwater sacrificed Owen in vain, for his
daughter never married the rich Samuel Oldknow. It appears that
he was not as rich as Drinkwater had been led to believe ; and that,
coupled with the unwillingness of the young lady, was enough to
bar the match.

The Manchester days were instructive ones for Owen. Not only
did he learn the cotton spinning business, but he also came to know
something of the world of science and literature through his asso-
ciation with the members of the Manchester Literary and Philo-
sophical Society and the faculty of Manchester College. Owen was
invited to become a member of the Philosophical Society, where he
took part in their discussions.

Owen came to know John Dalton, the famous chemist, who was
teaching under Dr. Baines in the Unitarian College at Manchester.
Owen, Dalton, and Winstanley, another instructor, formed a little
group that met frequently to talk religion, morals, and science.
Coleridge also joined the party and held forth with great eloquence.

When Owen was not meeting with his friends of the college, he
was participating in the discussions of the Manchester Literary and
Philosophical Society. The records of that society show that Owen

9

Out of Wales

read at least four papers, none of wMch was pnblislied, however.
With the exception of one on the cotton trade, they were on social
subjects, and, to judge from the titles, they were indicative of
Owen’s trend of thought, “An Essay on the Utility of Learning”
was read in 1793 ; in 1795, he came out with “Thoughts on the Con-
nection between Universal Happiness and Practical Mechanics” ;
and finally in 1797 he read a paper with the following formidable
title : “On the Origin of Opinions with a View to the Improvement
of the Social Virtues.”^

All these papers were no doubt decidedly juvenile in char-
acter, but they give grounds for belief that Owen had at this time
been thinking on social and educational questions and forming
opinions that afterwards would be expressed in his work at New
Lanark.

Young Owen gave genuine evidence of his interest in science by
aiding Eobert Pulton. Fulton came to live at Number 8 Brazen
Nose Street, Manchester, where Owen was boarding. According to
Owen, the two men soon became friends. Fulton was working on
an invention for dredging canals and a machine for transferring
boats from lower to higher levels in canals without the use of locks.
As might be expected, Fulton needed money to further these enter-
prises, and Owen, struck by the enthusiasm of the young engineer,
lent him small sums from time to time until the debt ran up to
about £170. Pulton offered Owen a partnership in his schemes, and
papers were drawn up and duly signed. But later, the partnership
was dissolved by mutual consent with the loans made to Fulton
standing as a debt due Owen.

Fulton wrote many letters to Owen explaining his prospects and
at the same time his inability to repay the loan. Finally, he did
return £60; but shortly thereafter he went to America to win fame
with his “Clermont,” and Owen heard of him no more.®

Owen seemed to have been far too busy spinning cotton and
wrestling with scientific and social questions to fall in love. Yet
he had his opportunities. In his Life he gives an account of a beau-
tiful young woman who passed his way. Owen was difiSdent and
shy during the Manchester days. Therefore, when this young
woman, rich and socially desirable, came with her aunt to visit the

^ See Frank Podmore, Eohert Owe% 1, 58.

® See Eobert Owen, Life, 1, 64-70.

10

Bobert Owen

garden connected with Chorlton Hall, where he was living, he
showed them about in the most business-like way. Owen wrote
years later :

I was too timid and bashful to enter into conversation with them and too nn-
suspecting to imagine any other object than the one mentioned, — and with the
utmost simplicity and deference allowed them to depart as they came, and
certainly much disappointed with the result of their visit to one so stupid as I
must have appeared, for there was not the slightest indication of gallantry
in anything I said or did. In fact, to imagine any other object in their visit,,
except to see the garden, never for a moment occurred to me. I learned, too
late afterwards, that this young lady had been favorably impressed with my
character, and that she had for some time preferred me to all the many suitors
who were anxious to obtain her hand I never knew or suspected these feelmgs
in my favour, not even after this visit to me ; and so backward was I at this
period, that I did not consider I was entitled by it to an introduction to her or
her family. That connexion, which I might have obtained had I then possessed
sufficient knowledge of the world and sufficient self-confidence to have sought
it, would have been well adapted to have met and satisfied all the feelmgs of
my nature. But it was not to be, — circumstances were opposed to it, and an-
other destiny was awaiting me.®

While connected with the Chorlton Twist Company, Owen^sbusi-
ness dealings took him to Glasgow, where he met Caroline Dale,
daughter of David Dale. Dale was proprietor of the cotton mills
at New Lanark and a Scotchman of rigorously orthodox ideas.
Therefore, when he learned that young Owen, fresh from England
and tainted with atheistic notions, was frequently in the company
of his daughter, he had a plain talk with her and made it clear that
Owen was not his ideal of a son-in-law. But Caroline and Robert
had other ideas and persisted in meeting. Then too, after a time
David Dale’s opposition softened. If Owen’s religious ideas were
bad, his business ability was excellent and his integrity of char-
acter still higher.

Owen’s opportunity came when Caroline told him that her father
wanted to sell the great mill at New Lanark. Though but twenty-
eight years of age, Owen arose at once to the occasion. He straight-
way called on the father and offered himself as the purchaser. His
boldness and confidence somewhat fiabbergasted Dale, for he looked
upon Owen as a mere boy. But Owen hastened to explain that he
had the backing of men of wealth. In the end Dale sold his mill for
£60,000, payable at the rate of £3,000 a year for twenty years. This

» Hid,., 48 .

Out of Wales 11

price was fixed by Owen bimself , wbo was entirely trusted by Dale
in the transaction!''

Young Owen, having won over the father, now found no obstacle
to his union with Caroline Dale. The couple were accordingly mar-
ried in Dale's house in Glasgow ; and immediately thereafter they
journeyed to Manchester, where Owen continued his duties with
the Chorlton Twist Company. But after a few months, his partners
called him to take charge of the miU at New Lanark. This momen-
tous event for Owen took place in 1800. He was now transferred
to a stage where his performance was destined to grip the attention
of the whole world.

But before the story is told of Owen's work at New Lanark, it
becomes necessary to picture the England that unfolded before
his eves.

See Ihid,, 53.

CHAPTER II

OWEN’S ENGLAND

C WEN MOVED in the midst of bewildering change. Yesterday
I on some green and wooded bank, an angler might have
^ fished for wary trout ; on the morrow workmen might lay
the foundations for a mill, where whining machinery would break
the quietness of the gentle lapping water. The England of green
meadows and quiet villages gave way to a new England of mighty
cities belching forth smoke from countless factories — Chumming,
roaring factories, whose spindles and looms made cloth to cover
the naked of the earth. Where once the village forge glowed while
the blacksmith shaped tools for the neighborhood, now stood great
smelting furnaces vomiting up flame by day and by night so that
the earth might be ribbed in steel.

Englishmen, descendants of Saxon peasants — ^boar-hunting, fox-
hunting Englishmen, beef-eating Englishmen, whose whole back-
ground smelled of the soil — ^f ound themselves dragged on, pushed
on, by the irresistible forces released during this age of the Indus-
trial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was more than the
coming of machines driven by steam. It was more than a rapid
spread of factories pouring out goods in an ever-increasing volume.
It was also a revolution changing the thoughts and practices of
men. Laws adapted to an agricultural economy became obsolete.
Long established employee-employer relationships based on the
small shop ceased to function ; the old personal tie gave way to an
impersonal one. The new captains of industry, removed from their
employees, were little concerned with their comfort and well-being.
Regard for profits and more profits occupied their waking thoughts.
A newly rich class sprang up ; and, after their kind, they behaved
in ways unbelievably calloused.

Not only did the Industrial Revolution produce profound
changes of thought, but it was itself borne along on the waves of
new ideas — ^new ideas arising out of the stimulus provided by a
new world commerce. And England, standing out in the Atlantic
facing the New World, rose magnificently to meet the opportunity
of new markets.

[ 12 ]

Owen’s England

13

The great changes were on in Owen’s day. Each new machine
coming into use threw out of balance the old order and required
new adjustments. Improvements in spinning made necessary de-
velopments of new sources of power : water and steam. The new
power, steam, called for the development of new processes in iron
and steel making, and these new processes in turn compelled the
improvement of transport. In a sense, the Eevolution was a strug-
gle on the part of men to bring about order in an industrial society
made chaotic by technical changes in a few industries, such as
textiles and iron. It was this very chaos that moved Owen to action.
The remedies he came to advocate were based on a belief that the
irrational world in which he lived could be made rational and that
order would replace chaos.

When Owen went to New Lanark, the manufacture of cotton
goods was taking on vast proportions. Indeed, England was to
effect her greatest conquest in the realm of cotton. It seems strange
to discover that when calicoes and other cotton goods first made
their way to England from India they were looked upon as dan-
gerous invaders. The woolen interests dominating Parliament se-
cured legislation hostile to the new products. But such is the nature
of the economic life that laws to discourage the natural flow of trade
and commerce often prove futile. Soon Englishmen were seizing
the initiative from the Hindu and spinning and weaving even finer
fabrics. The story of the early Industrial Eevolution in England
was primarily the story of the enthronement of cotton as king.
Though cotton may be spoken of as king in the American South,
the very seat of his empire lay in England. The figures in regard
to the production of cotton tell the story. They tell the story of the
advance of Negro slavery in America and child slavery in England.

In 1790 the value of raw cotton employed in England was
£30,000,000. In 1801 the figures leaped to £50,000,000 ; and by 1810,
£123,701,826. The total value of woven fabrics advanced from
£5,407,000 in 1800 to £18,426,000 in 1809, and in 1815 the figure
rose to £21,480,792. By such a great wave of cotton manufacture
the woolen interests were engulfed.

With the world market open to England and little or no com-
petition in sight, the cotton business offered golden opportunities
to the manufacturer of England. It was small wonder that the
protests of workingmen at the advance of machinery and the cries

14

Bobert Owen

of the reformers should be drowned out by a great chorus of ap-
proval from eager stockholders. Of course it must not be assumed
that these figures altogether tell the story. During the Napoleonic
Wars, English goods for a time suffered partial exclusion from the
continental market. Also, there was a postwar depression to be
considered. But taken all in all, the figures were onward and up-
ward with no serious competition for a long time.

It was all too well known that England’s preeminence in cotton
manufacture was gained at a heavy price. However, it was to be
expected that in the early days of such a business, and in fact
in the whole realm of industry, little attention should be paid to
the human side of it. We shudder today when we read the facts
and figures relative to the employment of children in the mills.
In 1816, forty-one Scottish mills employed 3,146 males and 6,854
females. Of these, 4,581 were children below the age of eighteen.'
The situation in England was no better. Everywhere the children
were trooping to the factories.

The evidence given by Owen and others before the select com-
mittee of 1816 discloses the evils of child labor in the cotton mills.
Long hours were the rule, even up to sixteen hours a day. Owen
himself admitted working children of ten years of age over ten and
three quarters hours a day exclusive of time taken for meals. In fact,
Owen declared to the committee that before Sir Robert Peel pre-
sented his bill, the bill being considered in 1816, employers in the
Lancashire district were employing more than 5,000 children
under ten years of age.”

To a person living in the twentieth century, though perhaps
hardened by merciless bombings of children in war, the evidence
given before the committee of 1816 is indeed appalling. The spec-
tacle of children five or six years old kept at tasks for as long as
thirteen hours a day makes us wonder what kind of men these were
who lived in the age of the Industrial Revolution. What were the
extenuating circumstances that drove them to such courses — ^to
thus cheat children of their play time?

It might be urged that the work in the cotton mills was light in
the sense that it involved no muscular strain, and the idea of chil-

1 See Elie Halevy, A Sistory of the English People m 1815, 1, 245.

“ See “Eeport of Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Select Committee on
the State of the Children Employed in the Manufactories of the United King-
dom, 25 April-18 June, 1816.” Sessional Papers, KVI, 86.

Owen^s England 15

dren needing play was a notion foreign to most persons of that day.
At one stage in Owen’s eyidence before the committee, a member
raised this question : ^ What employment could be found for the
children of the poor, in those situations, till ten years of age^”
Owen was quick with an answer : “It does not appear to me that
it is necessary for children to be employed, under ten years of age,
in any regular work.’’®

Serying as an apprentice at an early age was regarded as part
of the education of every child of the “lower orders.” Therefore,
a hundred years ago child labor was taken as a matter of course
by parents. The hand-weayers worked their children long hours
at their looms, and other industries carried on in the homes made
use of children in the same way.

One inyestigator has this to say on the subject of child labor and
the Industrial Eeyolution ;

The evils and horrors of the industrial revolution are often vaguely ascribed
to the '^transition stage’^ brought about by the development of machinery
and the consequent "upheaval.^^ But the more we look into the matter, the
more convinced we become that the factory system and machinery merely took
what they found, and that the lines on which the industrial revolution actually
worked itself out cannot be explained by the progress of material civilisation
alone; rather, the disregard of child-life, the greed of child-labour, and the
mal-administration of the poor law had, during the eighteenth century, and
probably much further back still, been preparing the human material that was
to be so mercilessly exploited *

No matter bow we may seek to explain away tbe eyil of child
labor during this age of growing mechanization, the great blot will
not wash out. Not eyen after Englishmen could hear the tramp-
tramp of little children’s feet marching to the mills before dawn
did Parliament end the tragedy. It took, as Spencer Walpole wrote,
twenty-fiye years of legislation to restrict a child of nine to a sixty-
nine-hour week, and that only in the cotton mills.®

If Owen had neyer done anything else for the forgotten people
of England, his work on behalf of the factory acts would giye him
a high place among the humanitarians. But the story of that great
work belongs in another place.

The England of Owen’s day was more than an England of
machinery, of the poor and illiterate. It was a country with an

* B. L. Hutcbius aud A. Harrison, A History of Factory LegislatioHj p. 13.

® See Spencer Walpole, History of England from 1815, III, 418.

16

Boberi Owen

establislied ehurch. whose prerogatives and respectability were nn-
questioned. The clergy of the Church of England was quick to
resist any encroachments upon what it regarded as its domain.
Education and marriage fell within that domain. Whenever the
proposition of making education secular came before Parliament,
archbishops and bishops rose in the Lords to protest. They could
always raise the cry of “the church in danger’’ ; and Englishmen,
with their love of the traditional and the stately forms of the
Anglican Church, were ready to spring to its defense.

England at this stage did not know popular education. Thou-
sands upon thousands could neither read nor write. But in Scot-
land, Calvinistic Scotland, elementary education was not so
neglected. Indeed, the system there might well have been copied
by England. By a law of 1696, amended in 1803, there was pro-
vided a schoolmaster for every parish and supported by the parish.
He was appointed by the local landowners and ministers, and
naturally the Bible and catechism were made the foundation of
the teaching. While it was not a system of free education, it did
provide that pauper children were to be educated at the expense
of the parish. Thus in Scotland education was not compulsory, but
it was universal.

England possessed nothing equal to the Scottish system. In the
first quarter of the nineteenth century, there was no national sys-
tem of education. The educational advantages that existed were
offered either by the Church of England or by some other religious
body. Only a pitifully small number had an opportunity to read
and write, while the great army of illiterate children remained
behind.

Henry Brougham, Lord Chancellor, speaking in the House of
Lords in 1835 on the “Education of the People,” disclosed some
devastating figures taken from the Eeport of the Education Com-
mittee of the House of Commons in 1818. There were in England
and Wales 18,500 day schools, endowed and unendowed, educating
six days a week 644,000 children. Of this number, 166,000 were edu-
cated at endowed schools and 478,000 at unendowed schools —
schools supported entirely by voluntary contributions and by the
payments received from scholars.® These figures indicate that the

® See Henry Brougliam, "Speech on the Education of the People, Delivered
in the House of Lords, May 23, 1835/' Speeches^ III, 221,

Owen^s England 17

great burden of education in that day rested on the backs of the
unendowed schools.

The committee’s report in 1818 reyealed that only one in seven-
teen in the eastern portion of London received any education at
all; in the southwestern part of the city, one in twenty-one ; in the
city of Manchester, one in twenty-seven ; one in thirty-five in Bir-
mingham ; and one in forty-one in Leeds. Finally it was shown that
two-thirds of the “humbler classes” were wholly without edu-
cation.

The cause of popular education was blighted for a long time by
the element of religious controversy that entered into it. The
Church of England and the Dissenters both fought for control of
education, while children remained ignorant. Only a few, such as
Owen, dared suggest the complete secularization of education.

The upper classes thought of education for the “lower orders”
as a means of inculcating sound religious principles that would
make them amenable and contented with their lot. It was, further-
more, not regarded as an obligation on the part of the state to
maintain schools for the education of the masses at public expense.

As an example of the resistance offered to any measure provid-
ing for popular education, Samuel Whitbread’s Parochial Schools
Bill of 1807 is instructive. The bill as originally introduced re-
quired that parochial vestries must levy taxes to support schools
for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. The element of
compulsion was thrown out by the Commons, while the Lords
rejected the bill entirely, because it did not give to the minister
of the parish enough control over the school.

When the bill was before the Commons, several members arose
and declared that it might be well to teach children to read, but
writing and too much education would give the poor notions of
rising above their station in life. One member (Bose) argued that
those who had learned to write well “were not wiUing to abide at
the plough, but looked to a situation in some counting house.”''

The struggle for control of education centered around Lan-
caster and Bell. Lancaster, a Quaker, drew around him the Dis-
senters. They formed a society for the promotion of education
entitled the British and Foreign School Society. The Church of

Farliamentary Febaies, edited by WiUiam Cobbett, Vol. IX, ser. 1, pp. 798-
800. House of Commons, session of Monday, July 13, 1807.

18

Bohert Owen

England group clustered around Bell and launclied ‘The Na-
tional Society for promoting the education of the Poor in the
Principles of the Established Church throughout England and
Wales.” Out of the struggle for control of education came more
schools, but the surface of ignorance was scarcely scratched in
Britain. Owen was unable to break down the wall of religious
prejudice and make the education of the poor something more
than teaching the catechism, but he at least stormed the outer
works.

Owen not only found the Church in opposition to his liberal
views on education but also to his far from orthodox ideas on
marriage and divorce. Indeed, he found the Church in almost full
possession of these important keys to the happiness or misery of
men. It was not until 1836 that marriage became a civil contract.
And many a year was to pass before divorce came within the
range of possibility for a man or woman even in comfortable
circumstances.

But it must not be thought that Englishmen willed to have
education secular or at that time looked with favor upon mar-
riage apart from the Church. Therefore, when Owen struck at
these time-honored forms of respectability, he met with such op-
position as to destroy his influence with the masses of the English
people.

While Owen wrestled with the problem of the poor and lowly
at New Lanark, the ruling classes in England were enforcing a
penal code as ferocious as any in all history. No less than two
hundred offenses called for the death penalty. The hungry, driven
to desperation, poached on game preserves of the rich The rich
retaliated with laws providing for imprisonment with hard labor
for taking game; and then, when poachers resisted the game-
keepers in armed gangs, a law was passed in 1803 making death
the penalty for even the threat of resistance in arms.

In spite of the protests of Romilly and Mackintosh, the privi-
leged classes, professing to see in the desperate acts of the poor
the menace of revolution, passed ever yet new laws calling for the
blood of the poor. Sheep stealing, or stealing linen from a bleach-
ing ground, and other acts of theft provided the penalty of death
on the gallows. Scores of offenses that today might be treated as
misdemeanors called for transportation to Botany Bay for a term

19

Owen^s England

of years or even life. The only saving grace in this savage example
of man’s cruelty to man is to be found in the action of juries. They
simply refused to convict in many cases where the punishments
were out of all proportion to the offenses.

Not only did the ruling class protect its game preserves by sav-
age laws, but it prevented all organized protest on the part of the
workers by the Combination Acts of 1799. Under these acts em-
ployees were forbidden to combine m associations to raise wages
or shorten hours. These laws, so manifestly unfair to labor, re-
mained in force until that redoubtable tailor, Francis Place, en-
gineered their repeal in 1824.

And so it came about in England that there were ^^two nations,”
even as Disraeli declared — ^the rich and the poor.

While the rich grew richer, the poor grew poorer. The machine
poured out a great abundance of goods ; agricultural science made
possible ever increasingly larger crops ; but the poor grew steadily
hungrier and hungrier. Such was the paradox that confronted ^^Mr.
Owen of New Lanark.”

The ruling class — the rate-paying class — ^found the swelling
army of poor a great burden. “What is to be done with the poor
That came to be the question of the day. For pauper children,
the answer was easy : apprentice them to the lords of the cotton
mills. The adults were not so easily disposed of. They ate more
and were less amenable to discipline; but the overseers of the poor
sometimes drove them off in gangs to work in the fields and roads.
It was indeed an evil day for those who had once been cottagers
with a few acres and a loom to find themselves reduced to servitude.

While the eighteenth century had ushered in an age of reason
and skepticism, Owen’s England was a believing England. The
scientific and inquiring spirit so characteristic of the nineteenth
century had not yet penetrated the thick crust of a society still
medieval in outlook. Darwin and Huxley had not yet arrived
upon the scene, but their advent was not far distant. Thus Owen
lived in an England much out of joint, with a thousand and one
abuses, political, religious, economic, and social, that cried out
for reform. But for a long time the ruling class, entrenched in an
unrepresentative Parliament, did nothing but protect its interests.
Owen was made of different stuff. With everlasting enthusiasm, he
struck out in all directions to remold England nearer to his ideal.

CHAPTER III

THE POWER OF CIRCUMSTANCE

O WEN AND HIS yoting bride returned to Glasgow on J anuary 1,
I 1800 It was a remarkable day for Owen. Henceforth, he
was to be lord and master over a great manufacturing
plant and rule a town of two thousand inhabitants. It was a diffi-
cult task for him, because they regarded him with suspicion as a
designing Englishman intending to exploit them to the limit.
David Dale, the former owner, was well known to them as a man
of benevolent impulses and one of their own people. Over and
against the inhabitants of the mill town stood his partners, men
who were dividend minded and unsentimental. Owen’s interest at
this time was only one-ninth of the total.

The people of the little town were dirty, drunken, and depraved,
as might be expected of mill hands of that day. Owen wrote in his
Life that theft was very common and drunkenness the favorite
recourse. Perhaps a life as dull and drab as theirs left no other
means of escape.

The town was beautifully located, however, on the green banks
of the Clyde, which curved into a crescent at this point. Above
the town were the ^Palls of the Clyde,” a stretch of the river
where the water poured over the rocks in a succession of cascades.
But this beauty, apparently, had little effect upon the people, who
spent most of their lives within the ugly gray walls of the mill or
in their own dirty shacks.

In his Life^ Owen leads us to believe that he started out with a
plan for the redemption of the people. It seems more probable
that as he worked to eliminate the grosser abuses, the idea took
shape in his mind that he might make the town a model one. He
was naturally orderly and tidy and seemed to have a flair for
efficiency in production.

In order to increase efficiency within the factory, Owen devised
what he called a ^^Silent Monitor” for each employee. “This con-
sisted of a four-sided piece of wood, about two inches long and
one broad, each side coloured — one side black, another blue, the
third yellow, and the fourth white, tapered at the top, and finished
with wire eyes, to hang upon a block with any side to the front.

[ 20 ]

21

The Tower of Circumstance

One of tliese was suspended in a conspicuous place near to each
of the persons employed, and the colour at the front told the con-
duct of the individual during the preceding day, to four degrees
of comparison. Bad, denoted by black and No. 4 — indifferent by
blue, and No. 3, — good by yellow, and No. 2, — and excellent by
white and No. 1.’’^

Owen found that most of the silent monitors registered black
at first; but after he had aroused the workers^ P^’ide, the boards
reflected improvement until many showed white as he passed
through the mill.

A very considerable portion of the working force of the mill
consisted of pauper children. Owen wrote that Dale had engaged
between four and five hundred such children from parishes anxious
to be rid of them. Their actual ages ranged from five to ten years,
but they were given as seven to twelve. Dale had provided for
their food and lodging and also for their education ; but Owen
found that the children learned very little, especially since the
meager instruction they received came at the end of a very long
day’s work. Indeed, many of them fell asleep over their books.

It seems only too apparent that conditions at New Lanark under
Dale’s ownership were no worse and probably much better than
in most of the cotton mills in Britain at that time. All evidence
points to the benevolent spirit of that proprietor and his well-
meaning efforts on behalf of his work people.

Owen was determined to end the pauper labor arrangements,
and to attain that goal he made no more engagements with the
parishes. He also raised the age for children who were employed
in his mills to ten years. But he was not so successful in reducing
their hours of labor. For a long time he was compelled to keep the
mills running fourteen hours a day with two of these hours alloted
for meals. His partners barred his attempts at reform in the length
of the work day. But by changing partners, he managed to reduce
the actual time of labor of his employees to ten and three-quarters
hours a day by 1816.^

Owen’s early efforts at reform in New Lanark were directed at
cleaning up the streets and the houses as well as getting rid of

^ Bohert Owen, Life, I, 80“81.

® See ^‘Beport of tie Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Select Committee
on the State of the Children Employed in the Manufactories of the United
Kingdom, 25 April-18 June, 1816,^' Sessional Papers, XYI, 20.

22

Bolert Owen

the shops where liquor was sold. The streets were swept every day
at the expense of the company; hut the problem of cleaning up
the dwellings was not so easy. Robert Dale Owen writes of his
f ather^s efforts to bring about this latter reform :

A reform of a more delicate cliaraeter, upon wMeh my father ventured,
met serious opposition. After each family became possessed of adequate
accommodations, most of them still maintained, in their interior, disorder
and uncleanliness. My father’s earnest recommendations on the subject passed
unheeded. He then called the work-people together, and gave several lectures
upon order and cleanliness as among the Christian virtues. His audience
heard, applauded, and went home content ‘^to do as weel as their forbears,
and not to heed English clavers.”

Thereupon my father went a step further. He called a general meeting
of the villagers ; and, at his suggestion, a committee from among themselves
was appointed, whose duty it was to visit each family weekly, and report in
writing upon the condition of the house. This, . . . while grumblingly acquiesced
in by the men, was received “with a storm of rage and opposition by the
women.” [Taken from Bohert Owen at New Lanark, by a former teacher at
New Lanark, p. 5.] They had paid their rent, and did no harm to the house;
and it was nobody’s business but their own whether it was clean or dirty.
If they had read Borneo and Juliet, which is not likely, I dare say they would
have greeted the intruders as the Nurse did her prying master, —

“Gro, you cot-quean, go ;

“Get you to bed!”

As it was, while a few, fresh from mop and scrubbing-brush, received the
committee civilly, a large majority either locked their doors or met the in-
quisitors with abuse, calling them ^^bug-hunters” and other equally flattering
names.

My father took it quietly; showed no anger toward the dissenters; encour-
aged the committee to persevere, but instructed them to ask admittance as a
favour only; and allowed the small minority, who had welcomed these domi-
cileary visits, to have a few plants each from his greenhouse. This gratuity
worked wonders; conciliation of manner gradually overcame the first jealousy
of intrusion; and a few friendly visits by my mother, quietly paid to those
who were especially tidy in their households, still further quelled the opposi-
tion. Gradually the weekly reports of the committee became more full and
more favorable.®

And so Owen cleaned np tbeir bouses, but there was much more
to be done. How he handled the liquor problem is best given in his
own words :

The retail shops, in all of which spirits were sold, were great nuisances.
All the articles sold were bought on credit at high prices, to cover great
risks. The qualities were most inferior, and they were retailed out to the

® Robert Dale Owen, Threading My Way, pp. 72-73.

The Power of Circumstance 23

workpeople at extravagant rates. I arranged superior stores and shops, from
which to supply every article of food, clothing, etc, which they required. I
bought everything with money in the first markets, and contracted for fuel,
milk, etc., on a large scale, and had the whole of these articles of the best
quahties supplied to the people at the cost price. The result of this change
was to save them in their expenses full twenty-five per cent., besides giving
them the best qualities in everything, instead of the most inferior articles,
with which alone they had previously been supphed.^

The prejudice and suspicion of the people seemed to have been
very deep-seated, and Owen constantly refers to this attitude in his
story of these early years at New Lanark. But his opportunity to
win the villagers over came when President J eff erson put through
his Embargo Act, closing American ports to the export trade.
Straightway American cotton ceased to move to England, and the
prices of cotton rose to such heights that many manufacturers in
England closed down their plants. Owen tells us that he too stopped
his machinery. But he also paid full wages for the time that the
embargo was on, amounting to a sum of £7,000 in all. This was a
severe strain on his relations with his partners, but it won the com-
plete confidence of his people.®

The pace of reform at New Lanark now quickened. Drunkenness
and theft practically disappeared ; the little slabs of wood record-
ing individual character now showed yellow and white ; very young
children no longer stood by the spinning machinery watching for
a broken thread ; the birth rate of illegitimate children dropped.
But Owen^s partners, good commercial men, became apprehensive.

The master of New Lanark was not all reformer in the years
after he took over the establishment. He was also a good husband
and a very sympathetic father. Of his family he wrote :

I bad one sou boru iu a year after my marriage, — ^but be died iu infancy.
Another, named Eobert Dale, was bom the end of the second year. William
Dale, two years afterwards. Then followed two daughters — ^Anue Caroline,
and Jane Dale — about two years between each. Then David Dale, and Eiebard ;
and my youngest daughter, Mary, closed the number of my family.®

Though Owen was a disbeliever, he apparently did not press his
opinions upon his children. Kobert Dale wrote of his attempts as
a child to convert his father to the Christian faith :

I recollect, to this day, the spot on wbieb I commenced my long-projected
undertaking [converting bis father]. It was on a path which skirted, on the

63-64. « Ibid., 71.

* Eobert Owen, Xt/e, I, 63.

24

Boiert Owen

farther side, the lawn in front of our house and led to the garden. I could
point out the very tree we were passing when — with some misgivings, now
that it was to be put to the test— I sounded my father by first asking him
what he thought about Jesus Christ. His reply was to the effect that I would
do well to heed his teachings, especially those relating to charity and to our
loving one another.

This was well enough, as far as it went; but it did not at all satisfy me. So,
with some trepidation, I put the question direct, whether my father disbelieved
that Christ was the Son of God^

He looked a little surprised and did not answer immediately. ‘‘Why do you
ask that question, my son?’^ he said at last.

“Because I am sure — I began eagerly.

“That he is God’s Son«” asked my father smiling.

“Yes, I am.”

“Did you ever hear of the Mahometans?” said my father, while I had paused
to collect my proofs.

I replied that I had heard of such a people who lived somewhere, far off.

“Do you know what their religion is*^”

“Ho.”

“They believe that Christ is not the Son of God, but that another person,
called Mahomet, was God’s chosen prophet.”

“Do they not believe the Bible?” asked I, somewhat aghast.

“Ho. Mahomet wrote a book called the Koran ; and Mahometans believe it
to be the word of God. That book tells them that God sent Mahomet to preach
the gospel to them, and save their souls.”

Wonders ciowded fast upon me. A rival Bible and a rival Saviour! Could it
be? I asked, “Are you quite sure this is true, papa?”

“Yes, my dear, I am quite sure.”

“But I suppose there are very few Mahometans : not near — near so many of
them as of Christians.”

“Do you call Catholics Christians, Robert?”

“0 no, papa. The Pope is Antichrist.”

My father smiled. “Then by Christians you mean Protestants? Well, there
are many more Mohometans than Protestants in the world: about a hundred
and forty million Mohometans, and less than a hundred million Protestants.”

“I thought almost everybody believed in Christ, as mamma does ”

“There are probably twelve hundred millions of people in the world. So, out
of every twelve persons only one is a Protestant. Are you quite sure that the one
is right and the eleven wrong

My creed, based on authority, was toppling. I had no answer ready. During
the rest of the walk I remained almost silent, engrossed with new ideas, and
replying chiefly in monosyllables when spoken to.

And so ended this notable scheme of mine for my father’s conversion.'^

As the sons grew older, they came more and more under their
father’s influence. All of them had a leaning toward the scientific,

^ Robert Dale Owen, op. dt., 60-61.

The Power of Circuynsiance 25

and on that account their father’s skepticism became increasingly
attractive to them.

Their mother, steadfast in her Calvinism, prayed nightly for
the conversion of her wrong-headed husband,* but it never took
place. Indeed, his opposition to revealed religion mounted with the
years. But the miracle of love overcame all religious differences.

Caroline Owen’s love for her husband needed to be very great;
for it was to be sorely tried in the years to come when he was to
forsake wife and home in pursuit of his ideal. In those New Lanark
days she watched with uneasiness his growing enthusiasm for re-
form, especially his almost fanatical reiteration of the philosophy
that all humanity might be saved by good surroundings and proper
environment. Evei^y day she heard him preach this doctrine to the
many visitors who called upon them at Braxfield House. Braxfield,
located on the Clyde near the mills, came to be their home in those
days before Owen started on his travels.

At the mills, on the streets of New Lanark, or at Braxfield, Owen
was always the gentle, benevolent-looking gentleman. Wherever
he went, children gathered about him to receive his little pats and
gentle smiles and sometimes his gifts of sweetmeats.

His son Robert tells of many little incidents relating to his fa-
ther in the formative years at New Lanark. It appears that Owen
would not allow any of his children to be punished for their mis-
deeds or rewarded for their good acts. In this position he was con-
sistent with the philosophy of determinism that he preached. ^The
individual is not responsible for his acts ; he is entirely a creature
of circumstances,” he repeated over and over again. When little
Robert in a fit of temper screamed in the nursery, his father ad-
monished his nurse and his mother not to touch him. He must not
be spanked nor caj oled but left to himself to scream until he became
exhausted.

No doubt the patient mother often shook her head sadly at the
peculiar ideas of her husband, but he was so mild and even tem-
pered about it all that she could not be offended.

It speaks much for Owen’s charity that he should have won the
friendship of his father-in-law, a man of strong religious faith.
David Dale lived with Owen and was even nursed by his son-in-law,
whose lack of faith must have puzzled Dale at times. Over and
again he would declare to Owen after a discussion of religious doe-

26

Robert Owen

trines : ^^Thou needest to be very right, for thou art very positive.”®
Each respected and admired the other.

After eight years of preliminary work with his people, Owen
stood ready to make some very radical reforms. He had in mind
the building of schools for the training of the children. To that
end Owen started work on a plant to house the school. But in the
midst of this, while the walls were still unfinished, his partners
rebelled. Up to this time they had occasionally demurred but never-
theless followed him. They now reminded him that they were in
business for profit and not for philanthropy. Owen, however, was
resolute and offered to buy them out for £84,000. His partners
accepted, and Owen was compelled to find new backing.

Owen’s new partners proved even less amenable to his reform
schemes for New Lanark. In a very short time, affairs came to a
crisis. Owen offered to buy these partners out, but they insisted
upon putting up the mills for public auction. The upshot of the
business was that Owen resigned the managership of the mills with
its salary of one thousand pounds a year. He soon found himself
short of cash ; for his partners refused to allow him the use of any
part of his investment , which turned out to be £70,000.

Kesolved now (1813) to hand-pick his partners, Owen posted
to London. It must be remembered that he had attained a certain
amount of fame as a philanthropic employer by this time. Brax-
field House had entertained scores of the great and the near great.
And so Owen had little trouble in getting financial support for his
plans, though they did not offer to the investor a large return.
In fact, Owen thought five per cent ample and did not offer more.

It was a remarkable group of men who came to Owen’s aid at
this time. Mr. John Walker of Arno’s Grove, a cultivated Quaker
gentleman who was wealthy enough to buy “the establishment
twice over,” took three shares of the thirteen Owen proposed to
issue in the partnership.® The second member of the projected firm
was Joseph Foster, also a Quaker, who took one share. Another
share was taken by William Allen, a Quaker of very pious nature
and destined to give Owen much trouble. Joseph Fox, a dentist,
was also assigned a share, as was Michael Gibbs, who came to be
Lord Mayor of London.

nud., 17.

® Owen retained five out of tlie thirteen shares for himself.

The Power of Circumstance 27

The group was completed by securing the backing of Jeremy
Bentham, the philosopher. Owen gives the story of his interview
with this eccentric individual :

It was most amusing to me to learn the difficulty, owing to his nervous
temperament, that he had in making arrangements for our first interview
after I had agreed to accept him as one of our associates in the New Lanai k
firm. After some preliminary eommumeation with our mutual friend James
Mill and Francis Place, his then two chief counsellors, and some correspond-
ence between him and myself, it was at length arrived at that I was to come
to his hermit-like retreat at a particular hour, and that I was, upon entering,
to proceed up stairs, and we were to meet half way upon the stairs. I pursued
these instructions, and he, in great trepidation, met me, and taking my hand,
while his whole frame was agitated with the excitement, he hastily said —
^^Welll well! It is ail over. We are mtroduced. Come into my study xind
when I was fairly in, and he had requested me to be seated, he appeared to
be relieved from an arduous and formidable undertaking. He had one share,
and his friends have stated that it was the only successful enterprise in
which he ever engaged. He, like Mr. Walker, never saw the New Lanark
establishment.^®

There is at least one piece of evidence to indicate that Benthani
went into the undertaking in spite of one friend’s vigorous pro-
tests. Sir Samuel Romilly wrote thus to Dumont of Bentham’s
venture :

Bentham is, I am afraid, about to engage in a speculation respecting the
mills at Lanark, m Scotland, which is to have the double object of making
the fortunes of those who engage in it, and of extending education and in-
struction among the lower orders of the people. I endeavoured strongly to
dissuade him from it, thinkmg that, at his time of life and in his situation,
it was great folly to embark in any concern which, by possibility, no matter
how remote, might involve him in difficulty and in distress, and ultimately
in ruin. All my good advice, however, only made him very angry j as if he
did not know how to manage his own affairs, as if he wanted advice, or was
to be treated like a child, etc., etc. I told him that the man who was engaging
him in this, though very well-intentioned, was really a little mad. To which
his answer was, “I know that as well as you; but what does that signify? He
is not mad s^mpZ^o^^er, but only secundum quid” Finding nothing was to be
done, I took my leave of him, contrived to make him laugh, and put him at
last in good humour by telling him that, though he would not take my advice,
he might depend upon it that, when he was an uncertified bankrupt, I would
not turn my back upon him.^

Robert Owen, Li/e, I, 95-96.

Sir Samuel Romilly, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel BomiXly, III, 135-
137, n.

28

Boiert Owen

Years later, after Owen had left the plain of philanthropy and
practical reform for the cloudy realms of the “New Jerusalem,’’
Bentham wrote of him :

Eobert Owen begins in vaponr, and ends in smoke. He is a great bragga-
doecio. His mind is a maze of confusion, and be avoids coming to particulars.
He is always tbe same — says the same thing over and over again. He built
some small houses; and people, who had no houses of their own, went to live
in those houses — and he calls that success.^

The business had certainly paid well up to this time, that is, if
we can take Owen’s word for it. He declared that the net profit for
the four years ending in 1814, after five per cent had been paid
for the money, amounted to £160,000.

William Allen seems to have undergone no little wrestling with
the spirit over the Lanark business. It is not always clear whether
his uncertainty of mind was due to his concern over the money he
was to invest or to Owen’s atheism. In his writings, presumably an
excerpt from his journal, we find this entry under the date of
January 1, 1814 :

Still in suspense about to Lanark, but my mind is tranquil, leaving all in
the Lord^s hand, with a comfortable hope that if the matter be inconsistent
with his will, he will not permit it to take place, and if on the contrary, it is
his appointment, that he will support me imder it.^^

At other times there was much more of leaning upon God for
support and asking for a sign of His intention. Allen finally went
into the business but not before he and his Quaker friends had
written into the articles of partnership certain provisions in re-
gard to the education of the ehildren.^^ On these articles Allen
wrote :

They provided, by distinct articles, for the religious education of all the
children of the labourers employed in the works; and it is expressly stated,
^^that nothing shall be introduced tending to discourage the Christian religion
or undervalue the authority of the Holy Scriptures.

That no books shall be mtroduced into the library, until they have been
approved of, at a general meeting of the partners.

^ Jeremy Bentham, Works, X, 570-571.

William Allen, Life of William Allen, 1, 135.

In Owen^s account of the sale of the property to himself and his partners,
he declares that Allen was present at Glasgow; but Allen writes that he received
word of the sale from Fox.

29

The Power of Circumstance

That schools shall be established at New Lanark, in which all the children
of the population resident at the partnership establishment there, mar be
educated on the best models of the British system to which the partners may
agree; but no religious instruction, or lessons on religion, shall be used, ex-
cept the Scriptures, according to the authorized version, or extracts therefrom
with out note or comment ; and the children shall not be employed in the mills
belonging to the partnership, until they shall be of such an age as shall not
be prejudicial to their health.”^

The story of the sale of the mills reads like a romance with the
villains foiled by the sturdy courage of Owen. On the appointed
day his former partners appeared all confident that the property
would be theirs ; and to celebrate what they believed would be their
victory over Owen, they had prepared a feast with the choicest
wines on the table. But Owen had other plans. With the stout back-
ing of his wealthy partners, who were kept strategically in the
background, he entered the lists against the villains. The bidding
started at £60,000. Alexander Macgregor, solicitor for Owen, bid
£100 more. The enemy bid £1000 more. Macgregor, according to
instructions from Owen, raised the bid another £100. So it went,
Macgregor always bidding £100 more than the opposing side.

Owen^s former partners continued to lead the bidding until
£100,000 had been reached. “But before they had attained this
point, their appearance and manner gradually changed. They be-
came pale and agitated, and again retired to consult. Returning to
the sale after Mr. Macgregor had bid one hundred upon their ad-
vance to one hundred thousand, they again resumed, [Macgregor]
bidding one hundred each time, until they bid one hundred and
ten thousand one hundred. Their agitation now became excessive.
Their lips became blue, and they seemed thoroughly crest-fallen.’’^®

On went the bidding after the opposition, Owen’s former part-
ners, tried to persuade Owen to let the mills go at such a fair price.
Finally Macgregor raised their bid of £114,000 his customary £100'.
At this point the enemy quit, and the mills of New Lanark were
knocked down to Robert Owen for £114,100.

It was a triumph for Owen, celebrated by the delighted in-
habitants with a great procession. Owen rode at the head of it, his
carriage being dragged along through the streets by his devoted
subjects amidst the wildest cheering.

WiUiam Allen, o'p. cit., 136.

“ Eohert Owen, Life, 1, 91.

CHAPTER IV

THE HEW HEAVEH AHD THE
HEW EARTH

O wen’s quest for new partners was not the only reason for Ms
I trip to London in 1813. For a long time ideas gained from
* his experiences at New Lanark had been fermenting in his
mind. And so he went down to London to publish the manuscripts
of his Essays on the Formation of Character.

It is small wonder that he should have been thus moved. Already
princes and philosophers had found their way to his great experi-
ment. The cynics and skeptics who had come to scoff and doubt
departed filled with wonder and praise. Fortified by such success,
it is not strange that Owen should have caught the vision of a new
heaven and a new earth created on the model of Lanark with some
glorious new principles added. What could be done once could be
done again, he argued ; and also what could be done on a small scale
might be applied universally. And so Owen, clad in the bright
armor of faith in his principles, marched out to battle a world given
over to evil ways.

Before Owen proceeded with the publication of his work, he
visited Francis Place, the celebrated tailor of Charing Cross. Place
helped him with the manuscript and later wrote of Owen’s visits :

He introduced himself to me, and I found him a man of kind manners and
good intentions, of an imperturbable temper, and an enthusiatic desire to
promote the happiness of mankind. A few interviews made us friends. ... He
told me he possessed the means, and was resolved to produce a great change
in the manners and habits of the whole of the people, from the most exalted
to the most depressed. He found all our institutions at variance with the
welfare and happiness of the people, and had discovered the true means of
correcting all those errors which prevented them having the fullest enjoyment
possible, and, consequently, of being wise and happy. His project was simple,
easy of adoption, and so plainly efficacious, that it must be embraced by
every thinking man the moment he was made to understand it. He produced
a manuscript, which he requested me to read and correct for him. I went
through it carefully, and it was afterwards printed. . . . Mr. Owen then was,
and is still, persuaded that he was the first who had ever observed that man
was the creature of circumstances. On this supposed discovery he founded
his system. Never having read a metaphysical book, nor held a metaphysical

[ 30 ]

The New Heaven and the New Earth

31

conversation, nor having even heard of the disputes respecting free-will and
necessity, he had no clear conception of his subject, and his views were obscure.
Yet he had all along been preaching and publishing and projecting and pre-
dicting in the fullest conviction that he could command circumstances or
create them, and place men above their control when necessary. He never
was able to explain these absurd notions, and therefore always required assent
to them, telling those who were not willing to take his words on trust that
it was their ignorance which prevented them from at once assenting to these
self-evident propositions.^

Owen’s message to the irrational world of his daj took the form
of four Essays on the Formation of Character. The first two were
published in 1813 under the title of A New Vieia of Society; the
other two were not published until 1817.“ They were indeed the
gospel of his new social order, setting forth the principles of his
teachings and his method of bringing them into practice.

It was an opportune time for such a message; for all Europe was
in the agonies of a struggle against the tyranny of Napoleon. The
Great Conqueror, supreme on land, launched the thunderbolts of
his Berlin and Milan Decrees against Britain and British goods.
And now England entered into a season of suffering. The parish
relief lists grew longer and longer. Meantime, Moscow burned ;
and Napoleon, no longer invincible, fell back to Paris. Spring
brought Europe in arms against him. Then came Leipzig and
Elba, a brief interval of peace, and the Hundred Days, Britain,
triumphant, passed from war to peace — a peace without a parallel
in her whole history. The misery of the working classes passed be-
yond all bounds. Hunger-driven mobs smashed machines, burned
barns, and threatened the very existence of government.

In this disturbed time Owen brought forth the essays. The “First
Essay” in the initial edition was dedicated by Owen to William
Wilberforce. It seemed fitting that he should do so ; for, in looking
around him, no man seemed to Owen so worthy as Wilberforce.
His work in outlawing the slave trade made him rank among the
first of the humanitarions of his age. Bnt in the second edition
and later editions of the essay, Wilberforce’s name does not appear.
The high hopes that Owen had in the great reformer had been
shattered by the latter’s hostility to the Owenite program, espe-
cially that part of it that bore on religion.

^ Grabam Wallas, The Life of Francis Place , pp. 63-64.

^ Later, all the essays were giveu the title of A New View of Society.

32

Bohert Owen

When Owen^s plan for the relief of the poor came before the
House of Commons, Wilberforce voted against referring it to a
committee. The following passage in his Diary makes his position
clear : ‘‘I was forced to speak against it^ on the Christian ground
that they would exclude religion from life and substitute knowl-
edge instead.”®

The 'Tirst Essay” opens up with the famous dictum repeated a
thousand times by Owen in the years of his messiahship :

Any general character, from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant
to the most enlightened, may be given to any community, even to the world at
large, by the application of pioper means; which means are to a great extent
at the command and under the control of those who have influence in the
affairs of men.^

The principle laid down here that environment was the all im-
portant factor in the shaping of human character was one that
Owen had hammered out of his own experiences at New Lanark.
Perhaps Owen thought he was announcing to the world a new idea.
However, it mattered little to him whether the idea was new or
thousands of years old. He thought it good and sound; and above
all, he wanted it put into practice. No argumentation or proof to
the contrary was able to swerve him one step from what he believed
to be the path to salvation. His was the way of science — the way of
all social reform. The nineteenth century would see the flowering
of the idea that man is what his environment makes of him.

In the same essay, Owen observed that according to the census
figures the poor and working classes of Great Britain and Ireland
numbered fifteen million persons, or nearly three-fourths of the
total population, living, according to Owen, in conditions ^'which
directly impel them to a course of extreme vice and misery ; thus
rendering them the worst and most dangerous subjects in the em-
pire ; while the far greater part of the remainder of the community
are educated upon the most mistaken principles of human nature,
such, indeed, as cannot fail to produce a general conduct through-
out society, totally unworthy of the character of rational beings.”®

Owen moved on into the position that society was responsible
for the existence of crime — a very modern notion. After visiting

^ William Wilberforce, Diary, V, 46.

Kobert Owen, ^^First Essay,'^ A New View of Society, p. 14.

^lUd,

The New Heaven and the New Earth

33

Newgate prison, lie declared that Lord Sidmonth, then Home Sec-
retary, should have been punished rather than a certain boy of
sixteen held in the prison heavily ironed for an offense.® Owen
certainly was preaching a new doctrine in an age given over to
severe punishments as a cure for crime.

Owen found an illustration in the career of Napoleon :

Even the late Buler of Prance, [he wrote,] although immediately influenced
by the most mistaken principles of ambition, has contributed to this happy
result [the removal of ignorance], by shaking to its foundation that mass of
superstition and bigotry, which on the continent of Europe had been accumu-
lating for ages, until it had so overpowered and depressed the human intellect,
that to attempt improvement without its removal wrould have been most un-
availing. And m the next place, by carrying the mistaken selfish principles in
which mankind have been hitherto educated to the extreme in practice, he has
rendered their error manifest, and left no doubt of the fallacy of the course
whence they originated/

This view of Napoleon and bis place in bistory would certainly
meet with tbe approval of many modern students of that great
man, especially that part of Owen’s estimate wbicb credits Na-
poleon for tbe sweeping away of many outgrown institutions.

Happiness of mankind is tbe refrain running through tbe entire
essay. Owen everlastingly proclaims that bis is tbe way to attain
that goal. Thus tbe eighteenth-century creed of happiness through
tbe life of reason crops out in every word be writes.

In tbe “Second Essay,” Owen examined particulars. The prin-
ciples are great, but the practice is greater. Once more he told tbe
story of New Lanark and how the people of that village bad been
redeemed from vice and misery by tbe “new system.”

There was still more of New Lanark in tbe “Third Essay.” But
now Owen added a new and more positive note. Heretofore he had
concerned himself with tbe removal of “bad circumstances” from
tbe inhabitants; but with tbe opening of the new Institution,
Owen’s school at New Lanark,® be proposed to build character on
a rational pattern. To that end Owen had provided playgrounds
for the young children; for he saw very clearly tbe importance of
supervised play in forming good habits. In this feature he was

® See Jonathan Wooler, Ov^en^s Plan for the Growth of Paupers,’’ JBIacjh
Dwarf, 1, 465-475 (August 20, 1817).

Eobert Owen, op. cit., p. 18.

® Institution for the Formation of Character, opened January 1, 1816. See
below, pp, 37-41.

34

Bohert Owen

decades ahead of his time. He was entirely out of sympathy with
the rigorous enforcement of the Sabbath as a day of “gloom and
tyranny.” It was a day to be used for recreation and enjoyment
for those who worked during the week.

Of course he dilated upon the work of the school at New Lanark
and boldly attacked what he termed irrational education. He
wanted education to be more meaningful, more related to life ; and
above all, ethical. Children must understand what they read and
see the usefulness of what they learned. Eeligious education in-
volving the teaching of subject matter not squaring with the facts
of science and life he wanted kept entirely away from immature
minds. Indeed, Owen repeatedly struck at revealed religions.

Some of the high points in his essays indicate that he kept alto-
gether consistent with his first principle. It is obvious that, with
the idea that any character can be formed by the proper means,
education became the great panacea. He early declared in his essays
“that children can be trained to acquire any language, sentiments,
helief, or any hod^ly haiits and manners, not contrary to human
nature.”®

All the misery in the world, crime and its punishment, wars, and
misconduct generally sprang from the failure of the rulers of the
earth — the leaders of the people — ^to recognize the truth of Owen's
principle relative to the formation of character. He announced :

Happily for poor traduced and degraded human nature, the principle for
which we now contend will speedily divest it of all the ridiculous and absurd
mystery with which it has been hitherto enveloped by the ignorance of pre-
ceding times* and all the complicated and counteracting motives for good
conduct, which have been multiplied almost to infinity, will be reduced to one
single principle of action, which, by its evident operation and sufScieney, shall
render this intricate system unnecessary, and ultimately supersede it in all
parts of the earth. That principle is the happiness of self, clearly understood
and uniformly practised; which can only he attained hy conduct that must pro-
mote the happiness of the community

Another principle that followed from the first was ‘^that the character of
man is, without a single exception, always formed for him; that it may he, and
IS, chiefly, created hy his predecessors ; that they give him, or may give him,
his ideas and hahits, which are the powers that govern and direct his conduct
Man, therefore, never did, nor is it possible he ever can, form his own char-
acterf’'^'^

Bobert Owen, op. cit., p. 16.

^^Ihid., 16.

Eobert Owen, "Third Essay,” A New View of Society, p. 45.

The New Heaven and the New Earth

35

Finally, in Ms ^Tonrtli Essay,” Owen sought to apply liis prin-
ciples to government. Although he never came to associate himself
with any particular political party, he kept up throughout his life
a steady bombardment of petitions to prime ministers and Parlia-
ments begging the adoption of his views. Owen started off in his
final essay with the Benthamite creed that the end of government
is to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Accordingly, he called upon government to cease fostering the
liquor traffic and to end the legalization of lotteries, thus discourag-
ing gambling among the poor."^ The national church also came in
for Owen’s censure. He did not at this stage in his career advocate
the abolition of the church ; but he demanded that all tests and
“declarations of belief” be eliminated, thus making the church
truly a national church."®

After much rambling about, Owen at length came down to the
proposal dearest to his heart — a national system of education for
the poor :

Either give the poor a rational and nseful training, or moeh not their igno-
rance, their poverty, and their misery, by merely instructing them to be con-
scious of the extent of the degradation under Tv^hich they exist. And, therefore,
in pity to suffering humanity, either keep the poor, if you now can, in the state
of the most abject ignoiance, as near as possible to animal life, or at once
determine to form them into rational beings, mto useful and effective members
of the state.^*

To the building of a national system of education Owen saw in
the Church of England a formidable enemy. It was seeking at that
time to control the government’s policy with respect to schools.
Owen was vividly aware of this attempt and did not hesitate to turn
attention toward it. He was moderate enough at this time, however,
to ask that the Church make a sacrifice of its interests in order to
build a nonsectarian educational structure for the country.

Owen’s advocacy of a national system of nonsectarian education
together with a plan for employment agencies and a program of
making productive the labor of the idle mark him a forward-looking
man. Clearly, he was thinking ahead of his time.

See Robert Owen, ^^Eourth Essay,” A New Yww of Society, p. 66.

^^Seelhid,, 67.
lUd., 75.

CHAPTER V

THE INSTITUTION FOR THE FORMATION
OF CHARACTER

T he stoet of tlie essays mizst not obscure the most significant
of Owen’s activities : his program of education at New Lanark.
The year 1814 marked the beginning of a new epoch at the
mill town. The commercially minded partners were now gone, and
new partners to whom cash was not the all in all called out to Owen,
“full speed ahead !” Owen was ready and confident, ever mindful
that his success so far at Lanark had proved that man is the crea-
ture of circumstance.

Owen had found the people of New Lanark ignorant, drunken,
shiftless, and dirty, and now they stood before him clothed in their
right minds. The drunken had become sober, the shiftless indus-
trious, and the dirty clean. Despair gave way to hope and joyful-
ness. Such was living testimony to the truth of his principles. Yet
all these miracles were but faint foreshadowings of the mighty
transformation that was to be wrought by education.

Like Plato and the makers of dream worlds in the past, Owen
saw that an ideal society could be created only by capturing the
youth and training it in the way it should go. Thus the education
of the children from infancy became his aim. Plato would have
turned the parents out into the country away from their children
Owen would have done the same and so also the Soviets after him.
The eternal parents perpetuating the prejudices and vices of the
race by example to their children stood, according to these teachers,
as the great barrier to human progress.

The whole problem of life to Owen was moral and ethical. Edu-
cation must not only impart useful knowledge but teach moral
attitudes. It was more important to Owen that the children be
taught to love one another than that they should know how to read
and write. What shall it profit a child to know his catechism by
heart if the meaning of it remains hidden from him ? Why spend
months of his time and torment his mind by learning to read by
rote passages from the Scripture that even the learned do not
understand? These were the challenges that Owen hurled at the

[ 36 ]

Institution for Formation of Character 37

educators of Ms day Perhaps much of what he said and did on
education showed the unconscious influence of Rousseau. But Owen
was no mere echo of other men’s ideas. His were born out of his own
experiences ; he was unhampered by learning and bookishness ; he
was essentially unhistorical and traditionless. If Owen had been a
gentleman’s son and had studied at Oxford, history would not
have known him.

The unfinished walls of the structure that was to be the Institu-
tion for the Formation of Character now began to grow again.^
Owen’s new partners for a time gave him that free hand he had
longed for throughout the years. By the close of 1815, the building
he had planned for his great experiment in forming character stood
ready to receive the children.

It was a large building — ^two stories high with two rooms on the
upper floor. One of these rooms was ninety feet long and forty feet
wide ; the other was forty-four feet long and the same width as the
larger room. The rooms were twenty feet high and very adequately
provided with windows. The larger room was designed to be used
for a lecture hall. It was fitted with desks and a pulpit at one end.
Galleries provided seating for visitors.

The smaller room was also used for lectures and sometimes as a
ballroom. It was in this room that the dancing lessons, which so
horrified Owen’s Quaker partners, were given. The walls were
hung with specimens of minerals and representations of animal
life. Pictures of huge reptiles and fish arrested the attention of all
who entered the room.

The lower floor was divided into three rooms of equal size used
as classrooms for the younger pupils.

The best description of the school as a whole is given by Owen’s
eldest son, Robert Dale Owen, who in all his writings manifests a
frankness and cultural spirit that is admirable. He writes of the
difficulty in procuring the right kind of teachers and the problem
of overcoming the bad influence of the parents when the school had
the children in charge but five hours a day. Then he passes down
into a discussion of the actual work of the school."

^ See the letter of Robert Owen to Henry, Lord Brougbani, n.d., in tlie New
Moral World, 1, 11-13 (Fovember 8, 1834).

2 See Robert Bale Owen, ^'Outline of tbe System of Education at New-
Lanark , New Harmony Gazette, I, 49—50, 57—58j 65—66, 73—74, 81—83 (Nov.
12, 19, 23, 30; Bee. 7, 1825).

38

Robert Owen

The school was opened to children from eighteen months to
twenty years of age. The night school provided education for the
older pupils, beginning at ten years of age ; for parents were anxi-
ous to get their children to earning money as soon as possible, and
Owen had fixed ten years as the lowest age for working.

The infant classes, from two to five years, remain in school only one half
of the time mentioned as the regular hours of attendance for the other classes.
During the remainder of the time, they aie allowed to amuse themselves at
perfect freedom, in a large paved area in front of the Institution, under the
charge of a young woman, who finds less difficulty — and without harshness or
punishment — ^in taking charge of, and rendering contented and happy, one
hundred of these little creatures, than most individuals, in a similar situation,
experience in conducting a nursery of two or three children.^ By this means,
these infants acquire healthful and hardy habits ; and are at the same time,
trained to associate in a kind and friendly manner with their little companions ;
thus practically learning the pleasure to be derived from such conduct, in op-
position to envious bickerings, or ill-natured disputes.^

Because of the outstanding contribution made by Owen to infant
education, that part of his work at New Lanark deserves more than
passing notice. It seems most appropriate to let Owen speak for
himself :

I had before this period acquired the most sincere afiections of all the chil-
dren. I say of all — ^because every child above one year old was daily sent to
the schools. I had also the hearts of all their parents, who were highly delighted
with the improved conduct, extraordinary progress, and continually increasing
happiness of their children, and with the substantial improvements by which I
gradually surrounded them. But the great attraction to myself and the numer-
ous strangers who now continually visited the establishment, was the new
infant school,- the progress of which from its opening I daily watched and
superintended, until I could prepare the mind of the master whom I had se-
lected for this, in my estimation, most important change, — ^knowing if the
foundation was not truly laid, it would be m vain to expect a satisfactory
structure.®

Owen went on to explain the difficulty in getting a master for
the infant school. Finally he found in the town

a poor simple-hearted weaver named J ames Buchanan, who had been previously
trained by his wife to perfect submission to her will, and who could gain but a
scanty living by his now oppressed trade of weaving common plain cotton goods
by hand. But he loved children strongly by nature, and his patience with them

3 Bobert Dale Owen evidently has reference to Molly Young. See p. 39.

^ Bobert Dale Owen, loo. cii., 57—58 (Nov. 19, 1825).

® Bobert Owen, Life, 1, 138.

Instihition for Formation of Character 39

was inexhanstible. These, with his willingness to be instructed, were the quali>
ties which I required in the master for the first rational infant school that had
ever been imagined by any party in any country; for it yas the first practical
step of a system new to the world. .

Owen also selected one of Ms mill hands, Molly Young, a girl of
seventeen, to act as a nurse for the children. Then he directed the
two on their behavior toward the children :

The first instruction which I gave them was, that they were on no account
ever to beat any one of the children, or to threaten them in any manner m
word or action, or to use abusive terms , but were always to speak to them with
a pleasant countenance, and in a kmd manner and tone of voice. That they
should tell the infants and children (for they had all from one to six years
old under their charge,) that they must on ail occasions do all they could to
make their playfellows happy, — and that the older ones, from four to six years
of age, should take especial care of younger ones, and should assist to teach
them to make each other happy

Owen insisted that the children be not “annoyed with books; but
were to be taught the uses and nature or qualities of common things
around them, by familiar conversation when the children's curi-
osity was excited so as to induce them to ask questions respecting
them.”®

It is at this point that Owen tears a leaf out of the book of Rous-
seau. Emile must be intrigued into asking questions.

The room used for the instruction of the children “was furnished
with paintings, chiefly of animals, with maps, and often supplied
with natural objects from the gardens, fields, and woods, — the
examination and explanation of which always excited their curi-
osity and created an animated conversation between children and
their instructors, now themselves acquiring new knowledge by at-
tempting to instruct their young friends, as I [Owen] always
taught them to think their pupils w^ere, and to treat them as such.”®

Owen declared that the children asked questions about the maps
hung in the room and made astonishing progress in knowledge
without the use of books. This led him to believe that books should
not be introduced until the cMldren were ten years old. But it was
not easy to carry such an idea into practice ; the parents naturally
associated education with reading and writing.

139 .

UUd.

140 .

UMd,

40

Bohert Owen

Owen laid great emphasis upon teaching the little ones dancing
and singing. Military exercises were also introduced. These fea-
tures always made a good show for the visitors hut greatly dis-
turbed Owen’s Quaker partners, especially William Allen. The
dancing seemed wicked enough to him, but the military exercises
were a plain affront to his convictions. Allen was also shocked at
the Eoman tunics worn by both boys and girls and never rested
content until he had put the boys into pantaloons.

It appears that the very young children were also given lessons
in geography.

Their lessons in geography were no less amusing to the children themselves
and interesting to sti angers. At a very early age they were instructed in classes
on maps of the four quarters of the world, and after becoming expert m a
knowledge of these, all the classes were united in one large class and lecture
room, to go through these exercises on a map of the world so large as almost
to cover the end of the room. On this map were delineated the usual divisions of
the best maps, except there were no names of countries or cities or towns j but
for the cities and towns were small but distinct circles to denote their places
the classes united for this purpose generally consisted of about one hundred
and fifty, forming as large a circle as could be placed to see the map. A light
white wand was provided, sufficiently long to point to the highest part of the
map by the youngest child. The lesson commenced by one of the children tak-
ing the wand to point with Then one of them would ask him to point to such a
district, place, island, city, or town. This would be done generally many times
in succession 5 but when the holder of the wand was at fault, and could not
point to the place asked for, he had to resign the wand to his questioner, who
had to go through the same process. This by degrees became most amusing to
the children, who soon learned to ask for the least thought-of districts and
places, that they might puzzle the holder of the wand, and obtain it f i om him.
This was at once a good lesson for one hundred and fifty, — ^keeping the atten-
tion of all alive during the lesson. The lookers on were as much amused, and
many as much instructed, as the children, who thus at an early age became so
efficient, that one of our Admirals, who had sailed round the world, said he could
not answer many of the questions which some of these children not six years
old readily replied to, givmg the places most correctly."®

It is difficult to form any very complete idea of tbe work done in
tbe infant sebool. Natural history seems to have been taught; for
Owen’s son, Robert Dale Owen, wrote of the curriculum of the
school :

Natural History is taught to all the scholars, even to the youngest, or infant
classes ; who can understand and become interested in a few simple particulars

Ihid , 144.

Institution for Formation of Character 41

regarding such domestic animals as come under their own obserTation, if these
are communicated in a sufficiently familiar manner; for this, indeed, is almost
the first knowledge wffiich Nature directs an infant to acquire.^^

It seems probable that some were taught to read in the infant
school John Griseom, an American university professor visiting
New Lanark, had this to say on the subject :

One apartment of the school afforded a novel and pleasing spectacle. It con-
sisted of a great number of children, from one to three or four years of age.
They are assembled in a large room, under the care of a judicious female, \\ho
allows them to amuse themselves with various selected toys, and occasionally
collects the oldest into a class, and teaches them their letters.^-

Owen was very proud of his infant school and jealously guarded
his title as the founder of the first school of that kind. On one occa-
sion he wrote a long letter to Lord Brougham correcting the latter,
who according to Owen had not recognized Owen^s claim. He de-
clared that Brougham, m a statement before the Committee on
Education of the House of Commons, took the credit for having
established the first infant school in ISIS.""®

Owen had a right to be proud of his work in promoting infant
schools. And though the idea appeared in other places, this fact
should not detract from his performance. The school was launched
by him at New Lanark, because it was altogether consistent with
his philosophy of changing the characters of individuals. He ob-
served from actual practice that the sooner he drew the children
away from the complete influence of their parents the better for
the success of his general plan.

The same philosophy controlled the activities of the school for
the older children as was applied to the infant schools. Kewards and
punishments, which were then almost universally regarded as
necessary accompaniments of education, were altogether barred.

^ Eobert Dale Owen, loc. cit.y 65-66 (November 23, 1825).

^ ‘^Seleetions from A Year in Europe/^ Eeports on European Education,
edited by Edgar W. Knight, pp. 11-111.

N.d., in New Moral World, 1, 11-13 (November 8, 1834) .

Owen, in his anxiety to estabHsh his claim, evidently misunderstood the re-
mark. For Brougham’s actual words before the committee were : 'Tn this eoim-
try, I think it is now about seventeen years since my Noble friend [Lord
Lansdowne] and I, with some others, began the first of these seminaries, bor-
rowing the plan, as well as the teacher, from Mr. Owen’s manufactory at
Lanark . . (Taken from Henry, Lord Brougham, ^^Speeeh on the Education
of the People, Delivered in the House of Lords, May 23, 1835,” Speeches of
Henry, Lord Brougham, III, 237.)

42

Bdheri Owen

Because lie considered that the children were ‘^creatures of cir-
cumstances/’ he believed that it was illogical that any merit should
be attached to good behavior ; and, conversely, that bad conduct,
being entirely a result of improper environment, could not fittingly
carry with it any blame.

According to Robert Dale Owen, natural history, history, geog-
raphy, reading, writing, and arithmetic, and sewing for the girls,
were the subjects taught. Natural history was made as realistic as
possible by using drawings and pictures. But there seems to have
been more lecturing to the pupils than we would think good prac-
tice today.

In the teaching of history, many mechanical aids were used.
Robert Dale Owen’s account makes this clear :

Ancient or Modern History constitutes another branch of their education.
It may be thought, that m teaching History, the aid of sensible signs can be
but seldom called in. The reverse, however, is the case. Their application here
IS, in fact, more complete than in any other branch. Seven large maps or tables,
laid out on the principle of the Stream of Time, and which were originally
purchased from Miss Whitwell, a lady who formerly conducted a respectable
seminary in London — are hung round a spacious room. These, being made of
canvass, may be rolled up at pleasure. On the Streams, each of which is differ-
ently colored, and represents a nation, are painted the principle events which
occur in the history of those nations. Each century is closed by a horizontal
line, drawn across the map. By means of these maps, the children are taught
the outlines of Ancient and Modern History, with ease to themselves, and with-
out being liable to confound different events, or different nations. On hearing
of any two events, for instance, the child has but to recollect the situation, on
the table, or the paintings, by which these are represented, in order to be fur-
nished at once with their chronological relation to each other. If the events are
contemporary, he will instantly perceive it. When the formation and subdivi-
sions of large empires are represented, the eye seizes the whole at oncej for
wherever the colored stream of one nation extends over another, on these tables,
it is indicative, either of the subjection of one of them, or of their union j and
their subsequent separation would be expressed by the two streams diverging
again. The children can therefore pomt out the different historical events, as
they do the countries on the map of the world, count the years and countries
as they do the degrees of latitude and longitude; and acquire an idea almost
as clear and tangible of the history of the world, as that which the first ter-
restial globe they may have seen, gave them of its form and divisions. We
know, ourselves, how easily we can call to mind any events, representations of
which we were, as children, accustomed to see, and we may then estimate the
tenacity with which such early impressions are retained.^^

Eobert Bale Owen, loc, cit., 65-66 (November 28, 1825).

43

Insiihthon for Formation of Character

Though some might object to such a method of teaching history
as being too mechanical and unrealistic, it has the merit of being
concrete and teachable.

It has already been pointed out that the reading studies were se-
lected under the principle that the children must understand what
they read.

A knowledge of reading and writing is considered but as furnishing a child
with tools, which may be employed for the most useful or most pernicious pur-
poses, or which may be rusty and unemployed m the possession of him, %^ho
havmg obtained them at a great trouble and expense, is yet unacquainted with
their real use. The listlessness and indifference so generally complained of by
him, whose unpleasant duty it becomes, to force learned, but to them unmean-
ing sounds, upon his ill-fated pupils, who are thinking of nothing all the time,
but the minute that is to free them from the weary task, — are scarcely known
under such a system.^®

There was little else that was unique in Owen’s school. Much of
the practice in teaching arithmetic and some of the other subjects
was shot through with the influence of Pestalozzi, and the whole
organization showed marks of Lancaster’s monitorial system.

Owen’s school astonished and pleased the liberals of his day;
but the religious of orthodox mold were loud and persistent in
their protests against the infidelity taught. William Allen, Owen’s
Quaker partner, felt called upon to stop the progress of the wrong
opinions taught to the young at New Lanark and often journeyed
north to set Owen right. Under the date of August 26, 1814, Allen
wrote in his diary :

Spent most of the evening with Owen, at Ms residence, at Braxfield; he
walked about with me, and we had much painful conversation on the subject
of Ms peculiar opinions.^®

And then somewhat later he set down this :

I found the arrangements, with regard to the manufacturing part, excellent,
and even beyond my expectations; but alas! Owen, with all Ms cleverness and
benevolence, wants one thing, without which, parts and acquirements and benev-
olence are unavailing.^^

Still later :

Sat down with E. Owen and J. Pox to a most important discussion of several
points in the articles of partnership, particularly those relating to the training

Hid., 57-58 (November 19, 1825).

William Allen, Life of William Allen, 1, 156.

44

Boieri Owen

of the children, and the use of the Holy Scriptures in the schools. The latter,
Fox and I made a sine qua non, at least as far as we are concerned, and Owen
at length yielded.^®

Again in tlie spring of 1818, Allen, accompanied by Michael
Gibbs and Joseph Foster, gave Owen a very particular visit. Allen's
diary entries betray how deeply he was concerned over what he
saw :

This has been a trying week, as I have had deep exercise of mind on account
of Bobert Owen’s infidel principles. I have sustained many disputes with him.

We have endeavoured to get pretty full information relative to the state of
the concern at Lanark, both with regard to the population and the business.
What I pray for is to be favoured to see clearly what is required of me to do.
Oh f that He whom I wish to love and to serve, would favour me with light and
clearness.^®

Allen was not too high-minded and straightforward in his meth-
ods of bringing the gospels to the poor people of Lanark. He wrote
under the date of May 7 :

Joseph Foster and I took a walk to Old Lanark, to see the minister there,
and inquire into the moral state of the people at the mills ; he said he was not
aware of any case of drunkenness for a year or two past ; and he did not think
Owen’s principles took any root among the population. We then went to an-
other of their ministers j he gave us a very good account of the morals of the
people at the mills, and I find that he visits them often; he seemed heartily
glad to hear our sentiments on the subject of the Scriptures, etc. ; and we urged
him to visit the schools, and see that they were taught there, and also to cor-
respond with us, if he saw any attempt made to introduce any thing contrary
to revealed religon.^®

Owen was quite aware of tlie measures taken by Allen to check
upon his management of the schools. Years later he wrote of Allen
as “a man of great pretensions in his sect, a very busy, bustling,
meddling character, making great professions of friendship to me,
yet underhandedly doing all in his power to undermine my views
and authority in conducting the new forming of the character of
the children and the population at New Lanark.”^

Allen held a meeting of the people in the town. This was done
with the approval of Owen. Of course, Allen and the other part-
ners, Foster and Gibbs, made it clear to the townspeople that they
were most solicitous of their spiritual welfare. The people re-

“ ma., 157. “ Ihid., 258.

“ Ibid., 257. ^ Bobert Owen, Life, 1, 141,

Institution for Formation of Character 45

sponded next morning with an address of appreciation for all that
had been done for them at New Lanark “

Sometime later Allen and the London partners wrote a long re-
ply to the address, describing what Owen had done as ^^temporal
comfort,” and setting forth their interest in eternal well-

being.”^

Owen seemed to have paid little attention to Alienas suggestions
for the ^'eternal well-being” of the people ; for in 1822 Allen and
his two friends, Foster and Gibbs, were back at New Lanark deter-
mined upon a complete purge of Owen’s educational system.

Allen declared to Owen that they were armed with the authority
of the London partners to renovate the schools. He also quoted ex-
tracts from the articles of partnership which gave the control of
the educational system to the London partners,* and, on top of it all,
he declared his intention of resigning from the firm if the articles
were not carried out. Owen “expressed himself rather warmly, but
at length consented that the whole business of education should be
managed by them.”**

After Allen’s crusade, he went back to London and wrote Ow^en
a letter filled with Christian love and charity :

I yesterday received thy reply to my letter announcing our safe return to
London; that reply aviakened afresh all the sympathy which I have ever felt
for the benevolent part of thy character. Sorry am I indeed to see, that our
principles are diametrically opposite ; but may that Gieat and Holy Being, who
seeth not as man sees, so influence thy heart, before the shadows of the evening
close upon thee, that it may become softened, and receive those impiessions
which He alone can give; then thou wilt perceive that there is indeed some-
thing infinitely beyond human reason, and which human reason alone can never
comprehend, though, in itself, perfectly reasonable. At Present, however, it is
quite plain to me that we must part.^

It is apparent that Owen paid little heed to Allen’s complaints,
because, when the latter visited New Lanark again in 1824, he wrote
in his diary : “Want of subordination and proper instruction.”®®

It was most unfortunate for Owen that his downright honesty
made it impossible for him to compromise with the prevalent spirit
of religious intolerance. But if he had been more yielding, then he
would not have been Owen — ^the iconoclast. Perhaps Owen saw the

See Allen, op. cit, I, 259. ® Hid., II, 39-40.

23 Ibid., 259-264. Ibid., II, 141.

2* Ibid., II, 39.

46

Robert Owen

value of opposition in making himself a public figure and Ms cause
a popular one. It was no doubt this desire that led him to encourage
visitors to New Lanark.

The visitors came by the hundreds. Eobert Dale Owen declares
that the number of visitors recorded in their “Visitors Book’’ from
1815 to 1825 was nearly twenty thousand.^^ Such a parade of on-
lookers might have been desirable in publicizing Owen’s work, but
it must have had a very questionable effect upon the children and
teachers in the schools. Being constantly under the eyes of an audi-
ence, they probably tended to behave like performers in a show.
It also took its toll from Owen. From being a steady, hard-working
reformer, he turned into a peripatetic lecturer incapable of stay-
ing on any one job for very long. Then too, because the aristocracy
and politically powerful came to visit him at New Lanark, he natu-
rally turned to them for aid in his great plan. And naturally they
would be the last to upset things as they were.

One of the most noted of the visitors was the Grand Duke Nicho-
las, later Czar of Eussia. He seems to have taken a great fancy to
Owen’s younger sons, especially David Dale. Owen declares that
when Nicholas dined at Owen’s home he always insisted upon hav-
ing David Dale on one side of him and "William on the other.
Nicholas was much impressed with the work done at New Lanark
and especially with the industry and skill of British workers. Since
his arrival in Britain, he had heard a great deal about overpopula-
tion of the country ; therefore, he offered to settle Owen and two
millions of Owen’s countrymen with him in Eussia to engage in
manufacturing “in similar manufacturing communities.”^® But
Owen refused this offer and also the invitation extended to his sons
David Dale and William to go back with Nicholas to Eussia.

Eobert Dale Owen tells the story of how his father gave the Duke
Mrs. Owen’s silver dessert set as a memento of his visit to New
Lanark. Such a gift seemed to Mrs. Owen and her son Eobert alto-
gether ridiculous. He wrote :

My mother, good sensible matron, took exception to any such proceeding. In
the ease of a friend to whom we owed kindness or gratitude, or to any one who
would value the offering for the donor's sake, she would not have grudged her
nice forks and spoons, but to the possessor of thousands, a two day's acquaint-
ance, who was not likely to bestow a second thought on the things!— -in all

See Eobert Bale Owen, Threading My Way, 114^115.

Eobert Owen, Life, 1, 146.

Instihition for Formation of Character 47

which I cordially agreed with her, especially when I found William Sheddon,
our butler, lamenting over his empty cases, the glittering contents of which had
often excited my childish admiration.^

Tlie Duke of Kent’s interest in New Lanark seemed to be genuine
and not altogether motivated by the loans made to him by Owen.
The Duke had planned on a visit of several days to Owen’s great
experiment ; but the Duchess was in “delicate health,” and the trip
had to be abandoned. However, he sent Dr. Henry Grey Macnab
to make a report on conditions in New Lanark.

Macnab declared in his report that he went to Owen’s town with
an unfavorable opinion but was completely won over by what he
saw. In the first place, he found no evidence that Owen interfered
with religious liberty.®® In fact, he became overenthusiastic with
what he saw and heard :

After breakfast we went dowm to this new world of pleasing scenes. The
school for the children, of two or four years old, w'as our first ob;)ect, and a
more pleasing sight to the philanthropist is not to be found, from Johnny
Groat^s house to the Landes End. The glow of health, of innocent pleasure,
and unabashed childish freedom, mantled on their pretty countenances. This
melting sight gave me a pleasure which amply repaid the toils of the journey.
We then went into the upper school — a school for cleanliness, utility, and neat-
ness, I should suppose not surpassed in the kingdom: they were 3ust com-
mencing, which was by singing a Psalm ; then the master went to prayer, and
afterwards read a chapter. The boys and girls, placed on opposite sides of
the room, then read in the ISTew Testament; a boy read three verses, then a
girl three, then a different boy other three, then a girl, and so on alternately
In another part of the room a catechiser was hearing the boys and girls [recite]
the Assembly’s Catechism.®^

Macnab certainly seems to have done his part to reassure the
orthodox that all was well at New Lanark. He even quoted the
figures of illegitimate births (twenty-eight in nine years) to prove
the Christian morality of the place.

If he had any doubts about Owen’s work at New Lanark, Macnab
soon had them dispelled. In fact, he became an enthusiastic expo-
nent of Owen’s views and used most of his book to prove that he was.

But after 1824, the year that Owen went to America, some very
considerable “reforms” were instituted at New Lanark. It seems
Sober t Bale Owen, op. cit., 119-120.

30 See Henry Grey Macnab, The New Views of Mr. Owen of Lanarh Critically
Examined, p. 34.

100-101.

48

Robert Owen

probable that Owen disposed of a portion of Ms interest in tbe
mills to invest it in tbe New Harmony enterprise in America. In
any ease, Ms salary as manager stopped in September, 1825, and a
new manager was appointed to take charge of the mills.^

In the Glasgow Free Tress of January 1826, an article appeared
describing the changes that had taken place in the schools at New
Lanark after Owen’s ties there were severed.®® It seems that the
teachers of dancing and instrumental music were dismissed.

The lessons are all Scriptural, but there is a want both of variety and extent
in reading. Eewards and punishments, the life of every seminary, and the soul
of improvement, are attached to this system. It is monitorial. In every class
there is life, action, emulation. The teacher is a gentleman of education, has
long been conversant with the system, and has organized several schools upon
the same plan. We heartily wish him success. But the picture has two sides. At
another part of the same day, Mr. Owen’s system is taught , and, here, rewards
and punishments are alike prohibited; so that, with the one gentleman the
ehildien must learn; and, with the other, they may or may not. The teacher’s
utmost efforts are now paralysed by the manacles imposed by the good natured
philanthropist. Yet, it is wonderful what the children knew m geography and
Natural History, without ever having read a word upon the subject, for they
have no text book. All their instruction has been oral. Many of them will run
over a blank map, with the utmost facility, and it is almost impossible to puzzle
them.^^

Owen’s work in organizing the schools at New Lanark gave Mm
national standing as an educator. When tbe House of Commons
created a select committee to inquire into tbe education of tbe
^dower orders,” Owen was asked to testify before it in 1816. Some
of bis evidence is very revealing. For instance, be declared that be
bad adopted ^'a combination of tbe Madras [Bell] and British and
Foreign [Lancaster] systems, with other parts that experience has
pointed out.”®® When asked if tbe expense of conducting tbe school

See letter of J. Wright to Eobert Owen, December 10, 1825, in Mobert Owen
Correspondence, MSS, Manchester Collection.

Although Owen no longer continued as manager of the New Lanark mills
after September of 1825, his connections there were not altogether broken.
He still had some interest m the property. In 1831, his solicitor, John Wright,
wrote to Owen that the latter had £6,000 invested in the New Lanark mills and
that his yearly income from this amount at five per cent was £300.

Clipping from the Glasgow Free Press, J anuary, 1826, in Place Manuscript
Collection, No. 27824, p. 97.

Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons, ^^Minutes of Evidence
Taken Before the Select Committee Appointed to Inquire into the Education
of the Lower Orders of the MetropoEs,” Sessional Papers, XVII, 1816, p. 238.

Institution for Formation of Character 49

was very great, Owen answered : is, apparently ; but I do not

know bow any capital can be employed to make such abundant re-
turns, as that which is judiciously expended in forming the char-
acter and directing the labour of the lower classes^'®''

Throughout his entire testimony runs the single thread that edu-
cation was to be for the formation of character. The subject matter
taught the children was important, but vastly more important was
the ethical content. The children must be taught attitudes — the
proper attitudes toward their fellow pupils and toward soeiet}^
generally. These attitudes, or habits, as Owen called them, are not
easily deducible to exact formula. Perhaps as nearly as Owen ever
reached concreteness in explaining what he meant by teaching good
habits is to be found in his instructions to his teachers : the children
must not be punished, and the teachers must give to the pupils an
example of kindness and love.

In all his work on behalf of educating the children, Owen walks
along with the great educators of all time. Like Plato, the problem
to Owen was one of teaching good habits. He was not concerned
with the mere mechanics of learning. Reading, writing, music,
dancing, and play were means to an end. The end was to make the
children good members of a community. They must be taught
through examples and their studies to love one another. The church
he found unequal to this task, because its emphasis was upon formal
subject matter that never reached the comprehension of young
minds.

In grasping the importance of infant education, Owen forever
deserves well of those who have come after him. Perhaps long after
he is forgotten as a social messiah he will be remembered as a
founder of infant schools.

241 .

CHAPTER VI

THE POOR

T he years that followed the publication of the essays were im-
mensely busy ones for Owen. Committees, reports, speeches,
and petitions kept him perpetually before the public. He now
became a national figure. The T%mes gave him whole pages. The
Duke of Kent borrowed money from him and presided over meet-
ings called by Owen to help the poor The Archbishop of Canter-
bury, in spite of Owen’s raps at the church, listened while Owen
read from the manuscript of his essays. To show his friendship for
Owen, he begged him to drop formality and call him plain Mr.
Sutton.

The cries of distress from the unemployed grew louder and
louder. The government headed by Lord Liverpool came to be
daily more desperate. Men of property, fearful lest they lose all,
were ready for extreme measures.

It was in these troubled times that the cotton spinner of New
Lanark launched in England a new plan of salvation. Heretofore he
had concerned himself largely with the problem of how to educate
the poor, but now there came to him a new vision that was to endure
without fading throughout his life.

It was a new society he visioned, where men would live rationally
in communities for the common good. Owen materialized his dream
by drawing the most intriguing plans for a village of cooperation
where the poor might make themselves self-supporting.

The privileged class, seeing their wealth disappearing into the
bottomless gulf of the poor rates, listened eagerly while Owen ex-
plained his plan. But presently some grew suspicious that all
workers might enter the villages and an end might be made of all
private property. Lord Lauderdale was one of those who saw very
clearly where the philanthropist of New Lanark was going. After
Owen had shown him a prospectus of his ''village,” the noble lord
remarked : "But what will become of us ?” Owen was ready with an
answer :

We shall not meddle with you. Your titles, your rank, shall not be meddled
with. You may shut yourselves up in your parks as usual,* but when you peep
over the walls, you wiU find us all so happy in our villages of co-operation, that

[ 50 ]

The Poor 51

you will of your owu accord throw away privileges that only interfere with
your own happiness.^

Out of the distress of the poor came the new economic philosophy.
The poor rates had risen from £5,400,000 in 1815 to £6,900,000 in
1817." ‘‘What is to be done with the poorf ’ came to be the cry that
went up all over the land. Owen, in this emergency, stepped for-
ward with a plan of relief.

In 1816 a meeting was held in the City of London Tavern pre-
sided over by the Duke of York. This meeting was attended by
many of the most prominent persons in England, who met to dis-
cuss the problem of dealing with the poor. Accordingly, a com-
mittee was appointed under the chairmanship of the Archbishop
of Canterbury to make an investigation. Owen tells in his autobi-
ography of how he appeared before the committee and gave his
analysis of the causes of the distress and oifered a remedy.® The
committee then asked him to submit his plan.'^ This plan was later
presented as a report to a select committee of the House of Com-
mons created for the purpose of inquiring into the poor laws.

The report set forth Owen’s scheme for the creation of villages
of cooperation and contained the germ of socialism. First of all
came Owen’s analysis of the causes of the prevailing distress. Ma-
chinery — ^the new machinery with its wide-spread displacement of
human labor — ^lay at the root of the trouble. Right on the heels
of the greatly increased productive power stimulated by the long
war came peace and the loss of markets. Owen declared :

Now, however, uew cireumstances have arisen. The war demand for the pro-
ductions of labour having ceased, markets could no longer be found for them ;
and the revenues of the world were inadequate to purchase that which a power
so enormous in its effects did produce: a diminished demand consequently fol-
lowed. When, therefore, it became necessary to contract the sources of supply,
it soon proved that mechanical power was much cheaper than human labour ;
the former, in consequence, was continued at work, while the latter was super-

^TheBZoofc Dwarf, XII, 447 (June 1, 1824).

^ See Porter, Progress of the Nation, pp. 444^45.

® Owen was, according to himself, on the committee. He said he never knew
who proposed him. He and a Mr. Mortlock, also on the committee, had break-
fast together and went on to the committee meeting. Members were leading
statesmen, economists, and business men. Owen told Mortlock at breakfast his
views on the cause of the suffering of the poor, and that was how he happened
to be called upon to tell his fellow committee members his ideas on the subject.
It seems that Mortlock urged Owen in a loud voice at the meeting to get up and
tell the committee what he had said at breakfast .

* See Eobert Owen, 1, 124r-126.

52

Bohert Owen

seded; and human labour may now be obtained at a price far less than is abso-
lutely necessary for the subsistence of the individual m ordinary comfort.®

This language sounds strangely modern. How often in the last
few years have we heard the same words, the same explanation of
the economic distress of our own time I

Owen moved on to his great cure. The poor must be employed
productively and surrounded by favorable circumstances so that
they might form good habits. To that end Owen advocated the
establishment of villages of 500' to 1,500 persons on tracts of land
equipped with buildings for the lodging of the people and for the
carrying on of manufacturing. The buildings were to be arranged
in the form of a parallelogram ; hence arose the expression ^^Owen’s
Parallelograms,” repeated again and again over the length and
breadth of the land.

If the community were to consist of 1,200 persons, at least 1,200
acres of land must be provided. The cost was estimated by Owen
at £96,000, if the land were to be purchased. Of course it was the
great cost that proved the chief objection to his plan. The socialistic
features were not at once realized, because the project was designed
only for the poor. It was advanced as an alternative to the poor
rates.

The people were to carry on farming and manufacturing cooper-
atively. And, as Owen optimistically figured, they would be able
to support themselves and leave a surplus to pay for the use of the
capital required.® In the cultivation of the soil, he planned on the
use of the spade. Owen had become a convert to the spade hus-
bandry proposed by William Falla.^

At the end of his report, Owen summarized the advantages of
his plan. The cost, he admitted, would be great ; but in the long
run he felt the scheme to be economical. The dividends would
largely be in the form of better human products that would result
from improved conditions On the more material side, he argued
that poor rates would be unnecessary. It was this particular point
that caught the fancy of many in England. Another significant

® Robert Owen, ^^Report to the Committee of the Association for the Relief
of the Manufacturing and Labouring Poor, referred to the Committee of the
House of Commons on the Poor Laws. March, 1817.’^ LifSj by Robert Owen,
lA, 53-64 (Appendix I).

« See Ibid.

See below, chap. IX, p. 86.

The Poor

53

advantage, according to Owen, was tliat under his plan the use of
machinery might be encouraged to increase the productivity of
labor.® This seems at a first glance to be inconsistent with his spade
husbandry ; but it must be borne in mind that he considei-ed that
form of cultivation more productive.

The report created a sensation in England. The Times and
Morning Post took it up, and for a time Owen’’ was the most
talked of man in Britain. The Times in the issue of April 9, 1817,
published Owen’s ‘‘Report to the Committee of the Association for
the Relief of the Manuf acturing and Labouring Poor” ; and later,
May 29, it printed Owen’s plan in full together with a drawing
showing a village of cooperation beautifully arranged in quad-
rangles. There was also a letter from Owen explaining in detail
the scheme. Nor was this all ; The Times was generous enough to
give him a sympathetic editorial :

The appearance wMch. our journal assumes tins day, shows the importance
which we attach to the celebrated plan of Mr. Owen, of Lanark for the em-
ployment, maintenance, comfort, and improvement of the poor. We have before
stated the difficulties which would occur in the consummation of the plan,
and shall not advert to them now, when it is simply our duty to lay the plan
itself before the country. It would he superfluous to attempt to explain that
which IS itself an explanation. Suffice it to say, therefore, that it is founded
in a consideration of the advantages to be derived in the dispatch of work,
from the division of labour among several hands. If there appears a little
of the ardour of enthusiasm in the manner in which Mr. Ow'en speaks of the
success of his plan, we ask, what great work was ever accomplished but by
enthusiasm? and, in truth, it is that spirit which is alone able to overcome,
in the execution of its projects, those impediments which it may have ovei-
looked in the contemplation of them. Besides, Mr. Owen is not a theorist only,
but a man long and practically familiarized to the management of the poor ;
we are, therefore, most desirous that a trial should be made of his plan in at
least one instance.®

Tbe Morning Post spoke in flattering terms of “tbat distin-
guisbed philanthropist Mr. Owen of Lanark. . . . His appeal,
founded as it is upon genuine reason, virtue, and humanity, cannot
possibly fail of success ; and while he is earnestly entitled to the
thanks and gratitude of his country, future ages will have cause
to revere his memory, as the virtuous author of universal public

® See Bobert Owen, op, oit,

® May 29, 1817.

54 Robert Owen

good, and as one of the most distinguished and worthy benefactors
of the human race.^^^°

Glowing words were these. Owen was now at the very height of
his power and influence. Lord Liverpool promised to call upon him
at Bedford Square for an inspection of his “modeh’ village.''^ In-
deed, Owen never lost one opportunity to explain his system to
the prime minister either through an interview or by letter.

An example of Owen’s influence during this period of his essays
and plan for the poor is to be found in a letter from Fanny Godwin
to her half-sister, Mary. After writing about the riots and general
distress in England, Fanny came down to a discussion of Owen:

They talk of a change of ministers ; but this can effect no good ; it is a change
of the whole system of thmgs that is wanted. Mr. Owen [Owen of New Lanark],
however, tells us to cheer up, for that in two years we shall feel the good ef-
fects of his plans ; he is quite certain that they will succeed. I have no doubt
he will do a great deal of good; but how he can expect to make the rich give up
their possessions, and live in a state of equality, is too romantic to be be-
lieved. ... I hate and am sick at heart at the misery I see my fellow-bemgs
suffering, but I own I should not like to live to see the extinction of all genius,
talent, and elevated generous feeling in Great Britain, which I conceive to be
the natural consequence of Mr. Owen^s plans. I am not either wise enough, nor
historian enough, to say what will make man plain and simple in manner and
mode of life, and at the same time a poet, a painter, and a philosopher ; but
this I know, that I had rather live with the Genevese, as you and J ane describe,
than live in London with the most brilliant beings that exist, in its present
state of vice and misery. So much for Mr. Owen, who is indeed, a very great
and good man. He told me the other day that he wished our mother was living,
as he had never met with a person who thought so exactly as he did, or who
would have so warmly and zealously entered into his plans

Owen’s day of glory was soon over. Its fading was not altogether
due to the attacks of the Malthusians, who kept up a steady fire,
or to those who doubted that his people would work without the
incentive of private gain ; but he himself very deliberately pur-
sued a policy that ruined his cause. On August 21, 1817, Owen,
filled with the crusading spirit, addressed a meeting in the City of
London Tavern. It was at this time that he made his famous denun-
ciation of religions.

August 9, 1817, cited in Robert Owen, Life, Ia, 92 (Appendix I, No. 3).

See letter of Lord Liverpool to Robert Owen, May 26, 1819, in Liverpool
Tapers, No. 38278. MSS.

“ Edward Dowden, Life of Shelley, II, 39—40.

The Foot

55

The hall ^sls crowded with the intelligentsia of London. Most in
evidence were members of the clergy, who must have scented an
attack upon their prerogatives. Members of Parliament and econo-
mists, skeptical minded but anxious to know more of ^'Mr. Owen/’
filed into the great room.

Owen, dressed in black broadcloth, nervously fumbled at his
papers as he sat on the platform waiting for the chairman to intro-
duce him. The meeting had been called to take measures for the
relief of the poor, and it was expected that ^‘Mr. Owen of New
Lanark” would confine himself to that problem. But when he began
his address, the audience soon became aware that he was interpret-
ing pretty broadly his assignment.

Owen started out with a few words on the problem of the unem-
ployed, and then his tone changed from one of quiet assertion to a
challenging note not altogether in keeping with his ordinarily
gentle and persuasive manner.

Why should so many countless millions of our fellow-creatures, through each
successive generation, [he demanded,] have been the victims of ignorance, of
superstition, of mental degradation, and of wretchedness?

My friends, a more important question has never yet been put to the sons
of men * Who can answer ^ who dare answer it, — ^but with his life in his hand j
a ready and willing victim to truth, and to the emancipation of the world
from its long bondage of disunion, error, crime, and misery?

Behold that victim ^ On this day — ^in this hour — even now — shall those bonds
be burst asunder, never more to reunite while the world shall last. What the
consequences of this daring deed shall be to myself, I am as indifferent
about as whether it shall rain or be fair to-morrow. Whatever may be the
consequences, I will now perform my duty to you, and to the world; and
should it be the last act of my life, I shall be well content, and know that
I have lived for an important purpose.

Then, my friends, I tell you, that hitherto you have been prevented from
even knowing what happiness really is, solely in consequence of the errors —
gross errors — that have been combined with the fundamental notions of
every religion that has hitherto been taught to men. And, in consequence,
they have made man the most inconsistent, and the most miserable being in
existence. By the errors of these systems he has been made a weak, imbecile
animal; a furions bigot and fanatic; or a miserable hypocrite; and should
these qualities be carried, not only into the projected villages, but into Para-
dise itself j a Paradise would "be no longer found

Robert Owen, Address Delivered at the City of London Tavern on Thurs-
day, August 21st, and Published in the London Newspaper of August 22nd,
18i7,” Life, by Robert Owen, Ia, 108”118 (Appendix I).

56

Bohert Owen

There was much more in the same -vein in his speech. Owen was
deadly in earnest. Nothing in his attack suggested mere sensational-
ism or desire to seek notoriety hy provoking controversy. Eeligion,
to him, was irrational and unscientific ; therefore, it could have
no place in his new social order. Though he was then forty-six
years old, he possessed all the enthusiasm, all the naivete of a very
young man who had just lately discovered that perhaps the Bible
was not true ^Trom cover to cover.’’

Owen declared in his Life that his message was received with
favor for the most part. But the volume of opposition grew steadily
from this time. He was now branded an ^^infidel” and looked upon
as a dangerous man by the respectable classes. Owen told of his
encounter with Henry Brougham the day after the meeting at the
City of London Tavern :

As a proof of the impression which my declaration at the last meeting
against all the religions of the world had made on the British pubhe, my
friend Henry Brougham, since known as Lord Brougham, and Lord Chan-
cellor of England, saw me the day after the meeting walking in the streets
of the metropolis, and came to me, saying — “How the devil, Owen, could
you say what you did yesterday at your public meeting ! If any of us” (mean-
ing the then so-called Liberal party in the House of Commons,) “had said
half as much, we should have been burned alive, — and here are you quietly
walking as if nothing had occurred!’”*

All tbe committees and meetings came to notking. There was
much talk, a little money subscribed, but ^‘Mr. Owen’s villages”
still remained only on paper or as a model to show the curious.
The economists were forever standing up and condemning the
plan as unsound and impractical. For instance, Major Torrens
spoke up after Owen had finished at the City of London Tavern
meeting. Torrens wanted Owen to face the population problem.
Was Malthus right or wrong ? Would not “Mr. Owen’s plan” bring
about a great embarrassment of numbers? Torrens, like most
economists of his day, thought England overpopulated."^® To these
questions Owen made no satisfactory answer — at least no reply
satisfactory to his opponents. It was not enough for him to push
the questions airily to one side by the remark that agricultural
science might increase food production by fifty per cent.

Eobert Oweu, Lifej 1, 164.

^ See The Times (Loudon), August 22, 1817.

The Poor

57

David Eicardo saw otlier difficulties iu Owen's plan. He thougM
that the money invested in the villages would not yield interest
and said as much at a public meeting with the Duke of Kent in
the ehair.“ And later on, in Parliament, Eieardo “observed, that
he was completely at war wdth the system of Mr. Owen, which w^as
built upon a theory inconsistent with the principles of political
economy, and in his opinion was calculated to produce infinite

mischief to the community He [Owen] would dispense with

ploughs and horses in the increase of the productions of the coun-
try, although the expense as to them must be much less when com-
pared with the support of men.^’^'^

Eieardo was opposed to the government going into any “com-
mercial experiment;” but if spade husbandry was what it had
been represented to be, then he thought the government might
well “circulate useful information and correct prejudices. They
[the government] should separate such considerations from a di-
vision of the country into parallelograms, or the establishment of
a community of goods, and similar visionary schemes.”^

The Times, so sympathetic at the start, began to cool off toward
the close of the summer of 1817. In an editorial taking up a col-
umn of space, it pointed out that Owen had added little by w^ay
of explanation of his scheme in a meeting that he had called for
August 14. The Times further declared that the paupers in Owen’s
community might not work as hard as under private ownership
and thus might become “perpetual state charges.” It also urged
Malthus’ doctrine of population as an argument against the com-
munity idea: “Is not Mr. Owen’s plan, therefore, calculated to
create a second generation of paupers, only for the purpose of
starving them?”"®

Late in 1819, Owen’s proposition came before the House of Com-
mons in the form of a motion made by Sir William De Crespigny
to refer it to a select committee. Crespigny was a personal friend
of Owen’s and often a guest at Braxfield House in New Lanark.
He knew of Owen’s work at first hand and spoke in glowing terms
See Ihid.y July 10, 1819.

Farhamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time : Published
under the Supermtendenee of T. 0. Hansard, ser. 1, Vol. XLI, p. 1206. House
of Commons, session of Thursday, December 16, 1819. Hereafter this series
will be cited as Hansard^s Parliamentary Debates,
isjhid., 1206-1207.

“ August 15, 1817.

58

Robert Owen

of the good things done at New Lanark in education, especially
in teaching the children to read the Bible and in acquainting them
with their duties to God, to their parents, and to themselves.^

Henry Brougham spoke for the motion, but he was quite em-
phatic in declaring against Owen’s general principles.

He was desirous not to be understood as meaning to agree to Mr. Owen^s
plan. He conceived the theory on which it was founded to be wholly erroneous.
It was founded upon a principle which he denied — ^that of the increase of
population being a benefit to the country. On the contrary, he had no hesita-
tion in stating, that the excess of population was one of the great causes of
the distress which at present afhieted the country. Yet this proposition, which,
from the best consideration which he had been able to give to the subject,
he was fully prepared to maintain was quite discarded by the theory of Mr.
Owen. . . . But to return to Mr. Owen^s plan — although he differed from the
theory upon which that plan was founded, especially upon the subject of
population, and thought it would increase the evil of which it was the osten-
sible remedy, he still agreed with the hon. baronet who brought forward the
motion, and the noble lord by whom it was seconded, that there were certain
parts of that plan peculiarly entitled to the consideration of the House He
meant especially upon the subject of education. The system proposed and
acted upon by Mr. Owen in tiaining infant children, before they were sus-
ceptible of what was generally called education, was deserving of the utmost
attention. This indeed was the sound part of Mr. Owen^s plan, and agreeable
to the wisest principles. By all means then, he would say, let the House appoint
a committee to inquire into the means by which those parts of Mr. Owen^s
plan, against which no objections could be made, might best be put m general
practice

Before Brougham sat down, he paid his respects to Owen’s char-
acter. Owen ^‘he really believed one of the most humane, simple-
minded, amiable men on earth. He was indeed a rare character ;
for although a projector, Mr. Owen was one of the most calm and
candid men he had ever conversed with. You might discuss his
theories in any terms you pleased — ^you might dispose of his argu-
ments just as you thought proper; and he listened with the utmost
mildness His nature perfectly free from any gall, he had none of
the feverish or irritable feeling which too generally belonged to
projectors.”^

In the course of the debate, much was made of Owen’s religious
views. Nicholas Yansittart, the chancellor of the exchequer, ex-

^ See Hansard’s Fc^Ucimentary Vehates, sei'. 1, XLI, 1191. House of Com-
mons, session of Thursday, December 16, 1819.

1195-1197.

1199.

The Poor

59

plained that he was opposed to Owen because his scheme was based
on the rejection of the authority of government and religion.^
So what with Owen’s heretical religious ideas and his failure to
satisfy the House on the population question, the motion to appoint
a select committee was lost."^

Once again in 1821 Owen’s scheme for the relief of the poor
came before Parliament. James Maxwell moved in the House of
Commons that a royal commission be appointed to report on the
establishment at New Lanark. The motion was opposed on the
grounds that it meant the regimentation of people and the doing
away with revealed religion Wilberforce spoke in opposition, as
he did in 1819 ; but he did not mention Owen’s religious heresies.

The Marquis of Londonderry did not think it was the business
of Parliament to decide on the prospects of Owen’s plan :

The hon. member [Maswell] had told as that the spade was preferable
to the plough, and that we should never be happy until we were all digging ;
that a cotton manufactory could never be earned out well until there was a
Mr. Owen to take care of the morals of the people when they came out of
the mill, so that society -would lose its dispersed and independent character,
and would be reduced to a system of machinery, which the hon. member would

drive out of the world, except as appbed to human beings There were

large and intelligent bodies which had a direct and lively interest m any plan
for the improvement of the administration of the poor; and it was not nec-
essary to a trial of Mr. Owen^s plan (if it held out any prospects) that the
country should be carved out into parallelograms, in order to put the poor
under the management of the exchequer The state of discipline recommended
by Mr. Owen might be applicable enough to poor-houses; but it was by no
means applicable to the feelings of a free nation.^

George Canning explained that he had promised Owen he would
be present when the motion came up, but that did not mean he
would support it. Canning concurred with what Londonderry had
said : that the plan “would lead to the complete destruction of
individuality, and to the amalgamation of the population into
masses, which was totally repugnant to the principles of human
nature, and above all, to the genius of the people of this country.”^
Canning also asserted that simply because Owen’s establishment
at New Lanark had been successful was no sure indication of its
1205.

-^"See lUd,, 1217.

ser. 2, V, 1321-1322. House of Commons, session of June 26, 1821.

1324.

60

Robert Owen

success on a large scale.^^ And then finally Canning called attention
to the antireligious nature of Owen^s plan as being contrary to
the tendency for all countries to have established religions.^®

Joseph Hume, the radical member, also took occasion to whack
away at Owen^s plan :

... if Mr. Owen’s system produced so much happiness with so little care,
the adoption of it would make us a race of bemgs little removed from brutes,
only ranging the four corners of a parallelogram, instead of the mazes of a
forest.^^

Naturally the motion went down before such formidable oppo-
sition. Thus ‘^Owen’s parallelograms” never received much serious
consideration from Parliament.

Owen’s project also found little favor with the political radicals
like William Cobbett, Henry Hunt, Thomas Attwood, and Major
Cartwright. They often attended his public meetings ; and after
he had set forth his plan with all sweetness and light, some one
of them would gain the floor and make a speech for parliamentary
reform. The next step would be a resolution putting the meeting
on record as favoring their cause as a cure for the evils that existed.
In many cases they triumphed over gentle ^^Mr. Owen,” who merely
smiled tolerantly and explained that they could not do otherwise,
being entirely creatures of circumstance.

Owen fell in for a mild beating at the hands of Jonathan Wooler,
another one of the radical group. In his paper, the Black Dwarf,
he accused Owen of having copied the ideas of Thomas Spence,
who advocated the nationalization of land. Spence and some of
the land reformers had suJTered imprisonment, as Wooler pointed
out ; but Owen had been able to tirade cabinet ministers and make
them like it, Wooler in his article declared that the toleration shown
Owen was due to the necessity of appeasing and diverting the
public to keep it away from reflecting on reform and reduced
taxation. As for Owen’s plan, he had this to say :

But these gentlemen [the capitalists] do not seem much disposed to hazard
their property out of their own line. They do not enter into the sublime
enthusiasm of an establishment, where Englishmen are to be metamorphosed
into daily slaves; and urged by taskmasters to a duty that only promises
them a mere subsistence, without the chance of rising in society — a prospect

See I'h^d•

^ See Hid., 1325.

2° lUd., 1322.

The Poor

61

which however darkened by the clouds of the day, is the only rational impulse
to labour — the only link that binds the interests of man in observance of the
laws, and the obligations that he owes to society.®®

Apparently Wooler was present at Owen’s meeting held in the
City of London Tavern on the fourteenth of August ; for he ap-
peared somewhat nettled at Owen’s superior tone :

Mr. Owen ought to have been very peculiarly indebted to his opponents,
instead of treating them with reproaches of ignorance. He told the meeting
that opposition would only accelerate his plan: and if this be true, his plan
will proceed very fast indeed; for never was opposition more general: and
if it keep pace with that feeling, it will cover the land shortly with ^‘breeding-
barracks,” as a person at the meeting said he supposed they were meant to be,
when he heard the name of the Duke of Wellington proposed on the com-
mittee. At the next meeting he proposed to ask “for a general, that is a nu-
merous and highly intelligent committee of severe scrutiny and investigation/^
but what means will he take to summon such men to the assembly, when he
confesses that his first meeting was composed of blockheads who could not
comprehend his plan! and of speakers whose objections were “so little to
the purpose, so futile, and contrary to daily experience, and evinced so much
real ignorance of the subject before them.”®^

Wooler naturally thought Owen’s panacea unworkable and de-
clared that Owen “is endeavouring to do that which he would la-
ment to see done, if it were possible that it could succeed.””"

The political radicals sniped away at these plans of his as
utterly inadequate, but the most devastating att-ack came from the
economists armed with the arguments of Thomas Eobert Malthus.
And even Malthus himself had something to say directly on Owen’s
schemes for the relief of the poor. The ratepayers now had a
champion who talked the language of science.

Owen’s Plan for the Growth of Paupers,” BlacTo Dwarf, I, 465-475
(August 20,1817).

CHAPTER VII

THE COHSCIEHCE OE THE EICH

U N-TIL MALTHUS published bis essay on population, the relief
of the poor -was looked upon as a Christian duty. But once
his ideas came to be generally known by the well-to-do
classes, they declared with great enthusiasm ; “Our very bounty
to the poor may prove their ruin. If we feed them liberally, they
will rear up a fresh army of paupers for us to care for.^’ Malthus
did indeed prove a strong fortress for the conscience of the rich.
Behind the great walls of his arguments the calloused hid, deaf to
the cries of the hungry.

It was in 1817 that Malthus in the sixth edition of An Essay on
the Principles of Population took notice of Owen’s plans :

Among the plans which appear to have excited a considerable degree of
the public attention, is one of Mr. Owen. I have already adverted to some
views of Mr. Owen in a chapter on Systems of Equality, and spoken of his
experience with the respect which is justly due to it. If the question were
merely how to accommodate, support and train, in the best manner, societies
of 1,200 people, there are perhaps few persons more entitled to attention than
Mr, Owen : but in the plan which he has proposed, he seems totally to have
overlooked the nature of the problem to be solved This problem is, Mow to
provide for those who are in want, in such a manner as to prevent a continual
increase of their numbers, and of the proportion which they bear to the whole
society. And it must be allowed that Mr. Owen’s plan not only does not make
the slightest approach towards accomplishing this object, but seems to be
peculiarly calculated to effect an object exactly the reverse of it, that is, to
increase and multiply the number of paupers.^

Malthus then took a closer view of Owen’s plan and proceeded
to hammer it as a scheme destined to reward the industrious
and the profligate equally. He also pointed to what he believed
would happen if Owen’s communities were carried into effect :

The labourer or manufacturer who is now ill lodged and ill clothed, and
obliged to work twelve hours a day to maintain his family, could have no
motive to continue his exertions, if the reward for slackening them, and seek-
ing parish assistance, was good lodging, good clothing, the maintenance and
education of all his children, and the exchange of twelve hours hard work
in an unwholesome manufactory for four or five hours of easy agricultural

^P. 518.

[62]

63

The Conscience of the Etch

labour on a pleasant farm. Under these temptations, the numbers vearly
falling into the new establishments from the labouring and manufacturing
classes, together with the rapid increase by- procreation of the societies them-
selves, would veiy soon render the first purchases of land utterly incompetent
to their support. More land must then be purchased and fre^sh settlements
made,* and if the higher classes of society were bound to proceed in the
system according to its apparent spirit and intention, there cannot be a
doubt that the whole nation would shortly become a nation of paupers with
a community of goods.

Such a result might not peihaps be alarming to Mr. Ow*eii It is just pos-
sible indeed that he may have had this result in contemplation when he pro-
posed this plan, and have thought that it was the best mode of quietly
introducing that community of goods which he believes is neeessaiy to com-
plete the virtue and happiness of society.^

Malthus went on to argue that the success of the New Lanark
experiment was no ground for believing that Owen’s idea of pauper
communities would be a success. The principle of private property
still prevailed at New Lanark and acted as a spnr to keep the lazy
and improvident in line.

Finally, Malthus delivered the following broadside at Owen :

On the whole, then, it may be concluded, that Mr. Owen’s plan would have
to encounter obstacles that really appear to be insuperable, even at its first
outset; and that if these could by any possible means be overcome, and the
most complete success attained, the system would, without some most un-
natural and unjust laws to prevent the progress of population, lead to a state
of universal poverty and distress, m "which, though all the rich might be made
poor, none of the poor could be made rich — not even so rich as a common
labourer at present.®

Malthus and other social writers of his day were completely
wrapped up in the idea that England was overpopulated. The wide
acceptance of this idea by legislators and the propertied classes
colored all local and national policies. Future generations, when
Great Britain had attained a population of some forty-five mil-
lions, might look back and smile at their apprehension; but in
Owen’s day there was every reason to believe that Britain suffered
from an excess of people. The means of production had been
greatly multiplied, and yet thousands were on parish relief. How
many times in the history of man’s social and economic struggles
has there occurred a situation leading men to make a diagnosis

® Pp. 518-519.
® P. 520.

64

Boberi Owen

entirely false 1 In economic depressions they cry out that machin-
ery is the cause of distress, that scarcity of money is at the root
of the trouble, and that overproduction or iinderconsiimption
brings about the evil Then time moves on and gives the lie to
them all.

Malthus’ theory looked plausible to Owen’s generation ; but as
the western world has grown more populous, perhaps beyond the
dreams of Malthus, less is heard of the dangers of overpopulation.
The creative adaptability of living organisms defies prediction.
Men have indeed increased their capacity to produce food; they
have also learned how to check their birth rate.

Owen was not seriously disturbed by Malthus and his followers,
unless we believe the stories that have been told of his visiting
France to learn of the contraceptive devices used in that country.

Late in 1823 James Macphail, a friend of Francis Place, wrote
a letter to the Labourer's Friend and Handicrafts Chronicle, in
which he incorporated an excerpt from a letter written by Place.
The editor of the journal published the letter and story over the
initials “J.M ” Macphail also sent the story to the Blach Dwarf
at the same time. Place’s name was not mentioned anywhere in the
article, but he was undoubtedly the author of the letter which ran
as follows :

You, I am sure, will give that truly beuevoleut man, Mr. Bobert Owen,
credit for good intentions, whatever opinion you may entertain of me, as an
unknown correspondent. I wiU therefore relate an anecdote respecting him.
It was objected to his plan that the number of children which would be
produced in his communities would be so great, and the deaths from vices,
misery, and bad management, so few, that the period of doubling the number
of people would be very short, and that consequently in no very long period
his whole plan would become abortive. Mr. Owen felt the force of this ob^jec-
tion, and sought the means of averting the consequences."^

Place declared that Owen learned of the small number of chil-
dren in French families and the relatively higher standard of
living enjoyed by them, especially in the South of France. This
led him to visit France, where he obtained information and devices
used by the French for the prevention of conception.

^ ^‘Mr. Owen and Mr. Malthus,” Black Dwarf;, XI, 499—500 (October 1^823) .
Also, the original draft of the letter is in the Place Collection, MSS., LX v III,
115.

65

The Conscience of the Eich

Place’s letter added that Owen gave two of these contrivances
to a friend who had been the cause of the inquiry.'' The letter
continued :

Mr. Owen no longer feared a too rapid increase of the people in his com-
munities; he saw at once what to Mm was most desirable, the means of
marrying all his people at an early age, and limiting their progeny to any
desirable extent. Ask him, and he will acknowledge what is here asserted.
Bo not then condemn this virtuous man to punishment here and hereafter,
because he entertains opinions which you call abominable What Mr Oven
saw would be the greatest of all evils in his communities, is the greatest of
all evils in the great community of this nation; and is tenfold increased in
the community which composes the Irish people.®

Macphail in introducing this statement by Place made it clear
that the stories circulated to the effect that Owen was putting
the French contraceptives into practice at New Lanark were of
doubtful validity:

It is reported that one of his [OweMs] plans is to prevent a too rapid
increase of population, and that he has already introduced it among the
people employed by him. The reported method is obscure and abominable,
[and] contrary to the holy laws of God. It is, indeed, divulged in anonymous
printed papers [that is, ^^Biabohcal Hand Bills”], circulated in and about

London An anonymous information [he concluded] is not to be believed,

but it ought to lead to inquiry.’’

Richard Carlile, who devoted his paper, the Eepiihlican^ to ex-
treme measures, seized with great fervor upon the story of Owen’s
advocacy of contraceptives to keep the population within bounds.
In the issue of his paper published May 6, 1825, the following
appeared:

I think this plan for the prevention of conceptions good, after getting rid
of as much pTe;]udiee upon the subject as the most fantastical can assume;
after three years of consideration ; after passing a year with a feeling almost
like dread of giving it thought ; I now, so think it good, and so piCblicly say it.
Still, it is not my plan; it was not sought after by me; it was submitted to

® Norman E. Himes in his study of '^The Place of John Stuart Mill and of
Eobert Owen in the History of English Neo-Malthusianism,” published in the
Quarterly Journal of Economics, XLll, 627-640 (August, 1928), suggested
that Francis Place might be the friend mentioned,

® Owen and Mr. Malthus,” Black Dwarf, XI, 499-500 (October 1, 1823) .
Also the original draft of the letter is in the Place Collection, MSS., LXYIII,
115.

LahourePs Friend, cited by Norman E. Himes, “The Place of John Stuart
Mill and of Eobert Owen in the History of EngEsh Neo-Malthusianism,”
Quarterly Journal of Economics, XLII, 627-640 (August, 1928).

66

Robert Owen

my consideration; and, I am informed, that it was introduced into this
country by Mr. Owen of New Lanark. The story of its English or British
origin goes thus. It was suggested to Mr. Owen, that, in his new establish-
ments, the healthy state of the inhabitants, would tend to breed an excess
of children. The matter was illustrated and explained to him, so that he felt
the force of it. He was also told, that, on the continent, the women used some
means of preventing conceptions, which were uniformly successful. Mr Owen
set out for Paris to discover the process. He consulted the most eminent
physicians and assured himself of what was the common practice among their
women, that the female was always prepared to absorb the semen and its
influence by a small piece of sponge, at the time of coition, and not to allow
it to impiegnate the genital vessels. . . . ®

TMs was a pretty plain statement and created no little stir. In
fact, the air was filled with talk about the ‘'beastly devices” to
limit the number of children. Owen took no notice of these stories
about his journey to Paris. It was not until a friend brought
Carlile’s article to his attention that Owen replied.

But meantime, two years had passed — ^two years in which there
had been a gale of talk relative to Owen^s position. During these
years Owen had gone to America, had embarked on a great ad-
venture there, and had reluctantly written finis to his dream.®
When he returned home, he finally made himself clear in a letter
to the editor of the Morning Chronicle and also in a journal called
the Sphynx, William Cobbett, who had entered the fight against
Owen and the Malthusians, reprinted the article published in the
Sphynx but evidently missed the one in the Ghroniclcj which was
substantially the same. Owen wrote m his letter to the Sphynx:

Sir, — Being informed by a friend, a few days ago, of a work, published by
Mr. Carlile, in which my name was used in a very extraordinary manner , I
immediately called upon Mr. Carlile, who, for the prst time, I saw on Satur-
day last.

On inquiry, I learned from him, that he had leen entirely misinformed on
the subject of that publication, so far as it concerned myself; and when I
informed him that the facts which I had been told were contained in it were,
in all respects, the reverse of the truth, he expressed the greatest regret, and
offered to maTce every reparation in Ms power.

I left Mm to consider what ought to be done; I called upon him again
yesterday afternoon, and obtained copies of the publication in which my
name had been so unwarrantably used, and for the first time I read them
last night.

^ “Institutions of Celibacy,” Bepublican, XI, 555-556 (May 6, 1825).

® See below, chaps. X, XI, XII, and XIII.

67

The Conscience of the Eich

They are of such a nature, that I deem it necessary to say, that I had not
the slightest knowledge of their publication, and that the facts are precisely
the opposite of the particulars stated

Owen then went on to explain why he had gone to the continent.

The purpose was to place his sons in Fellenb erg’s school at Hof wyl
and ^To commnnicate generally with the most enlightened states-
men, philanthropists, and men of science in France, Switzerland,
and Germany, upon the best means to remedy the growing evils
of society, arising from the daily introduction of new powers,
which, misdirected, threatened to involve the mass of the popula-
tion of all countries in misery ; but the subject alluded to by Hr.
Carliie was not, in a single instance, mentioned by any one of the
parties.”"^^

Owen seized the opportunity to take issue with Mai thus on the
population question. He declared that Malthus must have had in
mind man in the more primitive state when he formed his views ;
while Owen drew his conclusions from man ^^overwhelmed with
artificial means of production . . .

At other times Owen insisted that man, with scientific knowledge
enabling him to produce more and more food, would be able to
live for many thousands of years without danger of overpopula-
tion. But this goal "would be attained only if man lived rationally.

It was Cobbett that drew Owen out to make an emphatic denial
of his connection with the “beastly’’ French devices. Without
going to the trouble of making an investigation, Cobbett tore into
Owen in the columns of his famous Register. In one issue he spoke
of Owen as the “Beastly Owen” and put him in the same crowd
with Malthus and the “surplus population mongers.” Such violent
language brought Owen’s disciples to their feet. One wrote to
Cobbett protesting the attack. Cobbett attempted to justify his
language by declaring that Owen had never denied what Carliie "
had printed. Cobbett did not know that Owen had been in America
during much of the time after the story appeared in the London
papers. He also seemed not to have noticed Owen’s denial in the
London Morning Chronicle and the SpJiynx.

‘^Mr. Owen’s Disclaimer of Sentiments Imputed to Him,” The Sphpnx^ n d.
Cited by William Cobbett, ''Owen of Lanark,” Colletfs Wetlhj Register,
LXIV, 536-555 (November 24, 1827).

Ihid.

^nhid.

68

Boiert Owen

After the denial had been borne in npon Cobbett, he still per-
sisted in believing that Owen was connected with the ^ ^beastly
Carlile and the Malthnsians, He insisted that Owen had made nse
of an obscnre journal, meaning the Sphynx, to deny his connec-
tion with the ^^beastly^’ scheme to limit the population. He also
held it against Owen that he should have been associated in any
way with Father Eapp, who had founded the little community in
Indiana, U.S.A., that Owen purchased when he went to America
to launch his great experiment.''® Rapp, according to Cobbett, was
so ardent a defender of celibacy that he laid down the rule that
any woman in his community giving birth to a child ^‘for the space
of five years’’ should forfeit her share of the property, and the
father was to suffer a similar disability."*

In the end Cobbett found Owen’s *Very mild tone” in dealing
with Carlile an indication of his guilt :

I put it to the reader : I put it to any one of my readers, whether, if he had
been thus held forth to his countrymen as the prime apostle of this system
of beastliness , I put to him whether he, in such a case, would have gone like
a lambkin and talked to, and of, his MISTEE CAELILE? No; he would
have gone with a summons to take him before a Magistrate, or with a broom-
stick to break his bones. I should want little more than this gentleness in
such a case, to convince me that Mr. OWEN’S system is a 'bad one?-^

Cobbett was not the man to appreciate the ^‘mild tone” of Owen.
Such sweet reasonableness formed no part of the nature of that
violent controversialist.

Generations of men have regarded Owen as the founder of
Neo-Malthusianism. They have done this very largely upon the
basis of the story that Owen stoutly denied. The legend received
additional support at the hands of Dr. James Bonar, whose book,
Malthus and His Work, has stood as an authoritative study on the
subject. Bonar said of Owen and Neo-Malthusianism: ‘‘This is not
the place to discuss the questions associated in our times with Neo-
Malthusianism. But it is probable that the Neo-Malthusians are
the children not of Robert Malthus, but of Robert Owen.”"®

See below, chap. X.

^^Mr. Owen’s Disclaimer of Sentiments Imputed to Him,” the Sphynx, n.d.
Cited by William Cobbett, ^'Owen of Lanark,” CobbetVs WeeMy Register,
LXIV, 536-555 (November 24, 1827).

^Ubid.

Malthus and Sis Work (1924 ed.), p. 24.

The Conscience of the Eich

69

This idea that Eobert Owen was the founder of the Xeo™
Malthusian movement received further support from Professor
James A. Field, who believed that Owen brought contraceptives
into use at New Lanark/^ Field was one of the outstanding students
of English Neo-Malthusianism.

In a more recent study of Neo-Malthusianism made by Norman
E, Himes, Francis Place is given credit for being the founder of
English Neo-Malthusianism and not Eobert Owen/*' Everything
that Owen wrote and said about population indicates that he him-
self was not the founder. But in spite of all that might be said
against the story of Owen’s trip to France and his connection with
birth control, the fact remains that his son, Eobert Dale Owen,
wrote a book on the subject — Moral Physiology — and is recog-
nized as an outspoken advocate of the practice. The book was
advertised in the New Moral World, the organ of the Owenite
movement in the ’thirties and ’forties.

Meantime, the Malthusians kept up a steady fire during the
period in which Owen wms taken seriously as a reformer. They
came to meetings of the Owenites and asked troublesome ques-
tions, but the reformers would not be denied. They believed,
rightly enough, that life could not be reduced to a formula. They
saw opportunities for immediate improvement and refused to
believe that long-time tendencies, so often the recourse of those
who want things to remain as they are, could make such progress
impossible.

Indeed, great crowds poured into the Crown and Eolls Eooms
to listen to expositions of the “New Social System” from the lips
of Owen’s disciples. They stayed on for hours while the “Econ-
omists” piled up mountains of figures to prove that the promised
land of plenty was a mirage."® These meetings were often reported
as being attended by “numerous respectable females.” Perhaps
they were attracted by the prospects of a lively discussion of
Owen’s ideas of love and marriage.

The Malthusians were particularly aggressive in their assault
upon Owen’s spade husbandry. In the Edinliirgh Review of Oc-

See James A. Field, Essays on Population and Other Papers, 214 {Univer-
sity of Chicago Studies in Economics, JSTo. 1).

^ See Norman E. Himes, ‘‘The Place of John Stuart Mill and of Bobert Owen
in the History of English Malthusianism,^^ Quarterly Journal of Economics,
XLII, 627-640 (August, 1928).

“ See Co-operative Magazine and Monthly Kerald, I, 56 (February, 1826),

70

Eohert Owen

tober, 1819, an anonymous writer criticized Owen’s ideas of com-
munities as a way out of the problem of the poor/*’ He attacked
the community organization as economically unsound and spoke
thus of spade husbandry :

By discarding the plough, and performing the work of husbandry without
the aid of horses, Mr. Owen might possibly find employment on one of his
farms for 1000 instead of for 900 labourers; but though he might thus in-
crease the grossj he would infallibly diminish the net produce. Assuming,
by way of example, that the net produce is reduced from 1000 to 800 quarters
of corn, and that the taxes, the rent, and the interest of the money borrowed
to erect the village, amounted to 600 quarters, then, that portion of the prod-
uce of the soil which is applicable to mcrease the existing capital, and thus
to give employment to additional hands, will be reduced from 400 to 200
quarters. Spade cultivation, therefore, though in the first mstanee it might
allow a greater number of labourers to be engaged on a given surface, would
dry up the soui ces of accumulation and of increased employment ; and unless,
as we before hinted, Mr. Owen could persuade his villagers not to add to their
existing numbers, would in a very short time plunge them into aggravated
misery

Meantime, Owen, enjoying perfect health, was not in the least
disturbed by such attacks. He looked upon economists as people
who had not kept pace with the facts of a growing industrial
society.

During the course of the Holkam sheepshearing meetings held
in 1819, Owen was confronted with a question put to him by Dr.
Rigby of Norwich. After stating that he believed an increase of
population to be the surest criterion of the happiness of a people,
he then asked Owen whether the population had actually increased
in New Lanark, According to reports of the meeting, Owen evaded
the question. Perhaps he was afraid that he might commit himself
to the Malthusian point of view if he admitted the increase at his
great social laboratory.

While Owen apparently did not come to his own defense against
the Malthusians, a sympathizer writing under the name of “Britan-
nicus” declared that all the information he could gain pointed to
an increase in population at New Lanark, but that this increase
was not followed by misery or poverty. In fact, quite the opposite

While the article was unsigned, it was obviously written by Major Torrens.
See p. 88n

21 “Mr. Owen^s Plans for Believing the National Distress,” Sdinlurgh Be-
view, XXXII, 453-475 (October, 1819).

71

The Conscience of the Rich

was true. Owen liad, by bis superior methods, found plenty for all.
And so ^^Britanniciis” felt that Owen’s opponents "were in the
wrong when they rushed forward to refute his plans with the
bogey of overpopulation.^

Though the Malthusians had disturbed Owen, they had not
shattered his faith in the possibility of progress for men. He saw
quite clearly that men go forward on the road to plenty by utilizing
to the full the scientific knowledge they stand possessed of and not
by mere negative steps.

““See the Editor of the Antijaeobin Eeview,” Antijaco'bui Rei'ieu' and
Protestant Advocate: or Monthly, Political, and Lite/ary Ctnsor, LVI, 560-
565 (August, 1819).

CHAPTER VIII

THE CHILDREN OE THE MILLS

I N THOSE years of dark distress, Owen did more tkan marck from
meeting to meeting witk pictures of kis dream world under
kis arm. He also crusaded against tke brutalities of ckild labor
in tke mills. Sometime in 1815 Owen drafted a biU for tke regula-
tion of ckild labor in tke factories. For years ke kad agitated
against tke system of employing very young ekildren in industry.

It will be recalled tkat muck earlier, in 1802, Sir Robert Peel
kad fatkered a bill tkat came to be enacted into law for regulating
the hours of labor and working conditions of tke apprentices in
tke cotton mills. But this measure was wholly inadequate. It was
merely a gesture made to Peeks conscience. Tke cotton lords meant
that it should be no more than tkat.

Owen opened up kis struggle for a genuinely restrictive act in
1815, when ke published an article in tke Glasgow Chronicle en-
titled “Observations on tke Cotton Trade.” It was an argument
for tke repeal of tke duties on raw cotton, but at tke same time it
also contained an eloquent denunciation of “a trade, tkat, except
in name, is more imperious to those employed in it, than is tke
slavery in the West Indies to tke poor African negroes

In this article, Owen kad laid down some of tke points later to
be incorporated in kis draft of a factory act. This draft was used
in tke bill placed before Parliament by tke elder Peel. Owen asked
tkat no children be employed before they kad reached tke age of
twelve years, but in tke bill tke age was placed at ten years. Tke
hours of labor were to be ten and a half, exclusive of time spent
for meals, for all children up to eighteen years old. He also in-
cluded in his draft of tke bill presented to Parliament by Peel a
provision for daily instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic.
Tke measure called for suck restrictions on ckild labor in all fac-
tories employing more than twenty persons."^

^ Bobert Owen, ^^Observations on tbe Cotton Trade,” Life, by Eobert Owen,
Ia, 13-19 (Appendix F).

® See Bobert Owen, ^^Mr. Owen’s Bill for Begulating the Honrs of Work in
Mills and Factories, as Originally proposed in 1815, and Finally Spoilt. Witk
Observations of Opponents, and tke Act Passed in 1819,” L%fe, by Bobert Owen,
Ia, 23-32 (Appendix O) .

[ 72 ]

73

The Okildreji of the Mills

The bill brought forth a storm of protest from the cotton lords.
The arguments used against the proposed law have a familiar
sound. Some said the trade would be ruined. Others declared it
beyond the powers of Parliament to act as a guardian of children ;
the government would be usurping the place of parents. These
arguments and many more came out before the famous committee
of 1816 that took evidence. Before this committee of the Com-
mons, Owen gave testimony that ran into twenty-four pages of
printed material.®

Owen was not always accurate; nor was he overscrupulous
about his statements of so-called facts. Child labor was a great
evil to him and should be ended It was not material "whether his
evidence was based on hearsay and gossip when it came to such
things as ages and hours of the work of children. Owen at one
time before the committee made the assertion that William Sidg-
wick at Skipton had discharged a number of children under ten
years of age from his mills when he learned that the bill was being
brought before Parliament. But Owen was refuted in this evi-
dence by the proprietor’s nephew, "William Sidgwick."* Much stir
was also created when Owen testified that many children w’ere
employed as young as three and four years old.®

At one stage in his testimony, after he had made the astounding
statement that he did not think it necessary for children under
ten years of age to wmrk, Owen was asked by a member of the
committee :

If you did not employ them [children under ten] in any regular work, what
would you do with them? A. Instruct them, and give them exercise.

Q. Would not there be a danger of their acquiring, by that time, vicious
habits, for want of regular occupation? A. My own experience leads me to
say that I have found quite the reverse, that their habits have been good in
proportion to the extent of their instruction®

® See Great Britain, Parliament, House of Commons, ^^Beport of the Minutes
of Evidence Taken Before the Select Committee on the State of the Children
Employed in the Manufactories of the United Kingdom, 25 April-ll June,
1816,” Sessional Tapers, XYI.

^See Ibid,, 381-2, Owen claimed that he received his information from
Sidgwick’s nephew, William Sidgwick (junior), but the latter denied he had
made any such assertion to Owen. In his notes on his interview with Owen,
which he read to the committee, there was mention of only one child under ten
years of age employed in his uncle’s mills at the time of Owen’s visit and no
mention of children having been discharged.

® See Hid,, 88.

nud.

74

Boiert Owen

And so it went in this remarkable spectacle before the committee.
Owen, representing the new spirit of humanity, fonnd himself
opposed by men whose vision was limited to profits. Though a
cotton spinner and employer of children, Owen fonnd himself at
times unable to talk the language of those in opposition.

The act as passed in 1819 was far away from Owen’s original.
The age limit was dropped to nine years ; the hours of labor for
children under sixteen were fixed at twelve hours per day exclusive
of meal time ; and no adequate provision was made for the act’s
enforcement.

Indeed, it was to be many a day before Englishmen were ready
to end this sacrifice of their children. As late as 1832 evidence
was given before the Committee on Factory Children’s Labour
that now makes us shudder. A certain Samuel Coulson testified
before the committee:

At what time in the morning, in the brisk time, did those girls go to the miUs?

In the brisk time, for abont six weeks, thej have gone at 3 o’clock in the
morning, and ended at 10, or nearly half past at night.

What intervals were allowed for rest or refreshment during those nineteen
hours of labour?

Breakfast a quarter of an hour, and dinner half an hour, and drinking a
quarter of an hour.

Was any of that time taken up in cleaning machinery?

They generally had to do what they call dry down ; sometimes this took the
whole of the time at breakfast or drinking, and they were to get their dinner or
breakfast as they could; if not, it was brought home.

Had you not great difficulty in awakening your children to this excessive
labour?

Yes, in the early time we had them to take up asleep and shake them, when
we got them on the floor to dress them, before we could get them off to their
work ; but not so in the common hours.

Supposing they had been a little too late, what would have been the conse-
quence during the long hours?

They were quartered in the longest hours, the same as in the shortest time.

What do you mean by quartering?

A quarter was taken off.

If they had been how much too late?

Five minutes.

What was the length of time they could be in bed during those long hours?

It was near 11 o’clock before we could get them into bed after getting a
little victuals, and then at morning my mistress used to stop up all night, for
fear that we could not get them ready for the time; sometimes we have gone
to bed, and one of us generally awoke.

75

The Children of the Mills

What time did jou get them up in the morning?

In general me or mj mistress got up at 2 o’clock to dress them.

So that they had not above four hours’ sleep at this time I

No, they had not.

For how long together was itf

About sis weeks it held; it was only done when the throng was very much
on ; it was not often that.

The common hours of labour were from 6 in the morning till half -past eight
at night?

Yes.

With the same intervals for food?

Yes, just the same.

Were the children excessively fatigued by this labour?

Many times ; we have cried often when we have given them the little victual-
ling we had to give them ; we had to shake them, and they have fallen to sleep
with victuals in their mouths many a time.^

Others testified to the appalling effects of the long hours of work
on the bodies of the young children. Many suffered from crooked
legs and spines together with other deformities. Such was the ter-
rible price England paid for her industrial supremacy.

Owen’s experience with Parliament in the Factory Act of 1819
served in a measure to shatter his faith in the possibility of reform
through Parliamentary action. Owen writes in his autobiography :

At the commencement of these proceedings I was an utter novice in the
manner of conducting the business of this country in parliament. But my inti-
mate acquaintance with these proceedings for the four years during which
this bill was under the consideration of both houses, opened my eyes to the
conduct of public men, and to the ignorant vulgar self-interest, regardless of
means to accomplish their object, of trading and mercantile men, even of high
standing in the commercial world. No means were left untried by these men to
defeat the object of the bill, in the first session of its introduction, and through
four years in which, under one futile pretence and another, it was kept in the
House of Commons.®

Owen complained that Sir Eobert Peel yielded to tbe ‘^clamour
of tbe manufacturers.” He also tells in his autobiography how the
opponents of the measure sought to discredit his evidence and the
bill by sending a scandal hunter to New Lanark. Out of it came
charges of treason brought before the Home Secretary, Lord Sid-
mouth.

Bland, Brown, and Tawney, comp, and ed., English Economic Sistorp
Select BocumentSf 510-512.

® Eobert Owen, LifCj 1, 116.

76

Boiert Owen

It appears that a delegation armed with damaging testimony
gained an interview with Sidmonth. The leading witness against
Owen was the Reverend Menzies, a clergyman of Lanark. The Home
Secretary asked Menzies to state his charges against Owen :

I have to state [Menzies declared] that on the first of January last, at the
opening of what he calls a New Institution for the Formation of Character,
to which all his people and the neighbouring gentry were invited, he delivered
one of the most extraordinary, treasonable, and inflammatory discourses that
has ever been heard in Scotland.” “Indeed!” said Lord Sidmonth, “And you
were present and listened attentively to the whole of what he said^” “No, my
lord , — 1 was not present j but my wife and family were, and several ministers
living in the neighbourhood, and the gentry near,” “And you know all the
address contained?” “I know from the report of my wife and others that it was
most treasonable and inflammatory.” “Is this all the charge you have to make
against Mr. Owen?” “Yes, my Lord.” Lord Sidmonth then asked the deputa-
tion (and he appeared fully conscious of the animus of this proceeding,)
whether they had any further accusation to make. “No, my lord, we have no
other charge to make,” “Then I dismiss your complaint as most frivolous and
uncalled for. The government has been six months in possession of a copy of
that discourse, which it would do any of you credit to have delivered, if you
had the power to conceive it,” And he bowed them out.®

Though Owen is the sole authority for this tale, it is not at all
improbable that the incident actually occurred. It was widely
known that Sidmonth was on the alert for evidence of seditious
meetings and utterances, and this fact led Owen’s enemies to wait
on the Home Secretary. It also seems probable that Sidmonth an-
swered them in the way reported, because Owen had frequently
called upon him and satisfied him that his plans were peaceful and
nonrevolutionary.

Although the Factory Act was far and away from Owen’s
dreams, he had, nevertheless, broken through the line of resistance
to social legislation. Others tore through the hole he made, until
England came to accept in full the principle that the state should
be guardian over the helpless. He had indeed awakened the con-
science of England.

® IMd., 119 - 120 .

CHAPTER IX

THE WHOLE WORLD

T he years liad marelied do-wn to 1818. They had been filled
with incredible actiyity for Owen. The little boy who had
traveled with strangers in the coach to the great city of
London, the little shop assistant with the long nose, had become
a world figure. His triumphs at Lanark made him ^‘the celebrated
Mr. Owen^^ to statesmen, clergymen, and social philosophers. But
his reports and lectures, filled with the spirit of tremendous change,
drew from the privileged ones of the earth exclamations of doubt
and fear. Some said his success at Lanark had made him a little
mad. All said his plans were impracticable. However, such words
of doubt never penetrated the bright armor of truth that protected
him.

Owen had by this time ceased to be a man of business. New
Lanark saw him only occasionally. He still kept his position as
manager and partner in the mills but carried on most of his busi-
ness by correspondence. He was now a great propagandist inter-
ested in the salvation of the world.

After 1815 Owen was a public figure. He was constantly address-
ing meetings, writing letters to public officials, and sending articles
to newspapers. These activities carried him beyond the practical
realities of life. He lost touch with solid experience and began to
dream dreams.

He sent, or, if permitted, carried, his essays and printed material
to every prominent person. J. Q. Adams, while in London as Ameri-
can minister to England, received Owen one hlonday morning in
June of 1817. Adams wrote in his Memoirs of receiving pamphlet
and several newspapers, containing an exposition of what he
[Owen] calls a new view of society; some project like that of the
Moravian fraternity of Herrnhut — a community of goods and of
industry — ^projects which can never succeed but with very small
societies and to a very contracted extent. Mr. Owen, however, seems
to think that it is of universal application, and destined to give a
new character to the history of the world.”^

551-552.

[ 77 ]

78

Robert Owen

Adams was scientifically minded enough to be interested and to
give Owen a hearing. He met him again in America when Owen was
trying to win the young republic to his philosophy.^

Owen found in Francis Place a good friend but never a convert
to his views. It is true, however, that Place helped him with his
essays and articles and on one occasion sent a copy of the essays
to Bonaparte in exile. Owen wrote an enthusiastic letter to the
radical tailor telling him that anticipated my wishes by

sending a bound copy of the essays to Buonaparte. I think he will
find them of use in his new situation and exalt him to discover a
‘New View of Society.’

In his Life^ Owen declared that he met Sir Neil Campbell at
a dinner in London. Sir Neil had been British commissioner at
Elba and told Owen how he had there been shown a copy of the
essays by General Bertrand, aid to Bonaparte. The former em-
peror had sent Bertrand to Campbell to see if he knew the author
of them. This, according to Owen, proved that Napoleon had read
his work. Owen also declared that he learned subsequently that

Buonaparte had read and studied this work with great attention, and had
determined on his return to power, if the Sovereigns of Europe had allowed
him to remain quietly on the throne of France, to do as much for peace and
progress, as he had previously done for war, and that this was the cause of
his letters to ‘ the Sovereigns of Europe on his return, containing proposals
for peace instead of war. But they knew not, and did not believe, that he had
changed his views and was sincere in his declaration.'*

Sucb was Owen’s faitb in tbe power of bis ideas — a faith that
east out all fear and doubt.

Owen now decided to spread his views to the Continent and to
visit some of the new schools he had heard about. Up to this time,
1818, he had been tremendously active — ^building and directing
the school at New Lanark, writing essays and endless papers, mak-
ing speeches, and interviewing ministers of the government. His
continental tour was not undertaken, however, with the idea of
securing a rest from his labors but probably with a view to promot-
ing the great cause in other countries.

® See below, chap. X.

® Letter of Eobert Owen to Francis Place, July 6, 1816, in Place Manuscript
CoUeotionj No. 37949, MSS. This letter to Place was dated as above, but by that
time Napoleon had been defeated at Waterloo and was on his way to St. Helena.

* Eobert Owen, Life, 1, 112.

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79

Owen was accompanied by Professor Pictet, a Genevan scientist,
wbo introduced bim to many notables in Paris. Owen was particu-
larly gratified with Ms interview with the French prime minister.
In writing years later of his visit to the minister, he took pains to
explain how much he was honored. The prime minister at leave-
taking had not only accompanied O^ven to the door of his ovm
office but followed him through the second room and at length bade
him good-by at the third door. This procedure, Owen learned, was
followed only in case a visitor was to be signally honored. ‘^And
in this manner was the inexperienced cotton-spinner initiated into
the so-called great ways of the great world.”®

It must be mentioned that the ‘‘inexperienced cotton-spinner”
had been given an interview with the Duke of Orleans. The Duke
apparently treated Owen with that easy, offhand familiarity so
characteristic of him. He explained to Owen how he must be care-
ful in his utterances because the reigning family, the Bourbons,
was jealous of him and watched him closely.

There were many more interviews and meetings with famous
people ; La Place, Alexander von Humboldt, and the Duke de la
Rochefoucault. Owen was apparently delighted with the honors
shown him. He must have thought that he now was one of the great
ones of his time. Perhaps he did not always discriminate between
the language of courtesy and sincerity.

Owen’s visit to Father Oberlin’s school at Fribourg is interest-
ing. Of course Owen took the opportunity to tell the good father
what he had done for education at New Lanark :

I told Mm the plan wMeh I pursued was a very simple one, and was obtained
by a close and accurate study of human nature, not from books, (for these
were very generally worse than useless,) hut from the infant, child, youth, and
man, as formed under a false fundamental principle, as was evident by the
entire past Hstory of the human race. To form the most superior character
for the human race, the training and education should commence from the birth
of the child,* and to form a good character they must begin systematically
when the child is one year old. But much has been done rightly or wrongly
before that period. From that age no child should be brought up isolated. . . .
These children [one to three years of age], to be well trained and educated,
should never hear from their teacher an angry word, or see a cross or threat-
ening expression of countenance.®

® Ihid., 168.

174r-175.

80

Boiert Owen

And so Owen laid down some of his principles to Oberlin, who,
according to Owen, was much impressed. But the good priest could
not quite understand how Owen managed without resort to pun-
ishment. told him the secret was in the first division of the infant
school, from one to three,’’ Owen explained, “in which school the
affections of the children were secured to their instructors ; and
that when their affections are obtained, the children will always
with pleasure to themselves exert their natural powers to their
utmost extent.”"^

From Owen’s account of his talk with Oberlin, it is apparent that
he did not altogether convince the priest that human nature could
be changed so easily.

Owen and his friend, Pictet, also visited Pestalozzi at Yverdun.
Owen thought Pestalozzi’s school a step in advance of the ordinary
schools. But the famous schoolmaster did not teach the children
anything of utility, anything to help them earn a living ; nor did
he give any attention to their habits and dispositions. These were
Owen’s observations on the great Pestalozzi, who means so much in
the history of education.

But of Fellenberg, Pestalozzi’s pupil, Owen had more praise.
Fellenberg was conducting a school at Hofwyl, and to this place
Owen and Pictet journeyed. It is apparent that this master fell
more readily into Owen’s groove than either Oberlin or Pestalozzi ;
for, before Owen left the establishment, he had agreed to send his
two sons, Eobert Dale and WiUiam, to Hofwyl. It must be remem-
bered that this school was conducted for the education of children
of the upper classes, and no doubt this influenced Owen’s decision.
In time his two sons went to Hofwyl as Owen planned.

It was now approaching the time for the meeting of the Congress
at Aix-la-Chapelle. Owen turned away from visiting schools and
meeting scientists to take advantage of the great gathering of
rulers to place his plan before them. First of all, he made for
Frankfort on the Main accompanied by one of his New Lanark
partners, John Walker, who acted as Owen’s interpreter. The Ger-
man Diet was meeting in Frankfort, and the city was crowded with
diplomats and representatives of the German states. Emperor
Alexander, Metternich, Hardenburg, Capo d’Istria, Gentz, and the
great Jewish bankers, including the Eothschilds, Parish, and Beth-

176 .

The 'Whole World

81

man, were present. Owen was armed with letters of introduction
from Englishmen to many of the notables. Xathan Eothschild had
given him a letter to Bethman, which Owen used and which w’on
him an invitation to a most elaborate dinner given by Bethman
on September 7, 1818. It wms at this dinner that Owen met Gentz,
secretary to the Congress of Sovereigns, and held a somewhat ex-
tended debate with him on the ''Social System.” In his autobiog-
raphy, Owen declares that the dinner itself was staged for the
express purpose of giving Bethman’s guests, members of the Ger-
man Diet, an opportunity of hearing Owen debate with Gentz on
the “Ne'w Social System ” But apparentl}^ this discussion which
Owen thought so interesting to members of the Diet was not so
regarded by Gentz, who wrote in his Tagebiieher : ‘‘‘Diskiissmi mit
dem langweiligen OwenT^ According to Owen:

The conversation was soon so directed as to engage the secretary [Gentz] and
myself in a regular discussion, to w-hieh the others were attentive listeners,
and in which they were apparently much mterested.

As the discussion proceeded from one point to another, I stated that now,
through the progress of science, the means amply existed in all countries, or
might easily be made to exist on the principle of union for the foundation of
society, instead of its present foundation of wealth, sufSeient to amply supply
the wants of all through life. What vras my surprise to hear the reply of the
learned secretary! he said, and apparently speaking for the govern-

ments, “we know that very well ; but we do not want the mass to become wealthy
and independent of us. How could we govern them if they were?’^®

Owen declares that this remark of Gentz’s opened bis eyes to the
enormity of the task ahead of him. But this conversation did not
deter him from going on with his resolution to present a memorial
to the Diet.""® It is not improbable, however, that Gentz was merely
talking to shock Owen.

Owen waited in Frankfort until the Diet was over, but he re-
ceived no word that his memorial had been considered at all. In
the memorial Owen had not given any details of his plan, hut he
had merely called attention to the great advance made in the new
mechanical power and at the same time the growing improverish-
ment of labor. It was the everlasting paradox of starvation in the
midst of plenty that he propounded to the Diet. In all probability

« II, 261.

® Eobert Owen, Life, 1, 183.

“ See The Tirms (London), October 9, 1818.

82

Boberi Owen

those who glanced at the memorial put it down as the work of a
crank and speedily forgot it.

It was at Frankfort that Owen met Alexander, who by this time
was passing through a period of disillusionment destined to lead
him toward reaction. Gentz wrote after the Congress at Aix-la-
Chapelle, ^^Das die BevoluUonars aber am Kaiser Alexander Keine
Stutze finden werden, das ist jestzt sum Trost der Bessern, und zum
Heil der Welt vollstandig erwiessenJ^'^

Owen, learning that the Emperor intended visiting a kinsman,
the Prince of Tour and Taxis, who was staying at Owen’s hotel,
resolved to approach the Emperor with his memorial. Therefore,
as the Emperor was leaving the hotel, Owen stepped out and offered
him the paper. Alexander, according to Owen, was unable to find
a pocket for so bulky a package and consequently handed it back
to Owen with very evident annoyance manifest in his words :
cannot receive it — I have no place to put it in. Who are you?”
Owen replied, ‘^Robert Owen,” whereupon the Emperor said,
“Come to me in the evening at Mr. Bethman’s

Owen was very much hurt at the Emperor’s peremptory manner
and accordingly did not see him at Bethman’s. He declared that
he afterwards regretted this, because Alexander was naturally
kindhearted and of course tremendously influential. And so he
never had an interview with the Emperor, who no doubt, mystical
as he was, would have been attracted to Owen’s philosophy.

In due course Owen, with countless other reformers and witch
doctors, marched on Aix-la-Chapelle hoping to gain the ears of
those who had the power. It was the custom to prepare a formal
memorial or address on any subject to be set before the Congress.
Owen had done so, and he entrusted his two memorials to Lord
Castlereagh, who promised to present them to the Congress. There
seems to be some ground for belief that Alexander read the memo-
rials but did not give Owen an interview as he did Thomas Clark-
son and Lewis Way.""® Clarkson was at Aix-la-Chapelle in the
interests of the negro slaves and the abolition of the slave trade,
while Lewis Way was asking for equality for the Jews in Europe.

Owen had a right to expect some consideration from the Em-

^ Priedrieli von Gentz and Adam Muller, Brief wechsel zwischen F. Geni^ md
Adam Muller , 270.

“ Eobert Owen, LifSj 1, 185.

See The Times (London), October 23, November 6, 1818.

The 'Whole World

m

peror. It must be remembered that bis brother Nicholas visited
Owen at New Lanark. Also, his sister, the Grand Duchess of Oklen-
burgh, once spent two hours in London listening to Owen expound
his principles. At the end of the time, she promised to explain lus
views to the Czar.^‘

Joyneville, in his Life and Times of Alexander I, declares that
Alexander saw Owen at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle and ''en-
tirely shared’^ his peace pinneiples.''" But it seems improbable that
Owen would have met him and not have mentioned it in his Life,
There is every reason to believe, however, that the Emperor read
something of his plans ; for when William Allen visited Alexander
in 1819, he v rote in his diary :

He [tlie Emperor] said he had read a little of Eobert Owea’s plans, and
soon saw to what they would tend, and Ms opinion of them was precisely the
same as ours.^®

The Times correspondent at Aix-la-Chapelle wTote home that it
was Owen^s intention to ask the sovereigns and ministers to jour-
ney up to Scotland and examine his experiment at New Lanark.
“Whether the Sovereigns will choose to adopt it, and place them-
selves at the head of villages instead of empires,’^ the journalist
continued, “I shall not pretend to divine ; though my opinion is
that Mr. Owen will not succeed better at Aix-ia-Chapelle in prose-
lytising their Majesties, than the Quaker did who ivent to Rome to
convert the Pope.”^^

The Times had now ceased to take Ow^en seriously and in an edi-
torial had this to say about his idealism : “If hlr. Owen is a single
man, (and if married, perhaps he might be allowed two waves),
why can he not marry Madame Krudener ? they seem to be birds
of a feather : the ex-King of Sweden might give away the bride,
and the Abbe de Pradt perform the ceremony.’’^®

This playful sally at Owen was supplemented a few days later
by another article more sarcastic in tone :

The celebrated reformer of New Lanark, Mr. Owen, is quite nonplussed at the
conduct of the Congress. The Allied Ministers are holding conferences and
discussing international questions without once asking his advice, or requir-

See Eobert Owen, Life, 1, 146-147,

III, 275.

William Allen, Life of William Allen, I, 363.

The Times (London), October 9, 1818.

“ Bid.

84

Rolert Owen

ing his assistance ; though, as he justly observes, had they made his plan the
preliminary subject of deliberation, they might have saved themselves much
diplomatic embarrassment, and rendered Congress, as it has been nick-named
by the Germans, a comfress (Kom fress) or mere convivial party

The ^ ^Memorial to the Allied Powers Assembled in Congress at
Aix-la-Chapelle” was preceded by one addressed ‘^To the Govern-
ments of Europe and America.” Both memorials emphasized the
great increase in mechanical power and the necessity of adopting
measures to make the vast possibilities for increased production
available to all. Of course Owen would be glad to explain just how
this could be done In the ^Alemorial to the Allied Powers . . he
was more explicit in stating the ease for an economic order out of
balance He gave figures indicating that Great Britain's productive
powers in 1817 had increased over twelve times that of 1792."^®

It is interesting to note that Owen took pains to emphasize the
practical nature of his plan and that he was no “visionary.” He
also wrote of New Lanark as a “colony” and gave the impression
that some other kind of productive system prevailed at the mills
than one of individualism.^

In the treaties and their protocols which were drawn up by the
Congress, there was not one word to indicate that Owen’s memorials
had even been considered. Yet Owen declared that a French min-
ister told him in Paris that his memorials were looked upon as the
most important documents presented to the Congress.^^

It was all vain striving, however, and Owen early sensed it. He
was soon back in England ready for more meetings, more commit-
tees, where he might herald the dawn of a new day for England.

Those troubled years rolled on. The poor remained poor. Wil-
liam Allen made journeys to New Lanark to see that infidel Owen
had not utterly uprooted Christianity among the people in his
charge. The committee under the presidency of His Highness the
Duke of Kent finally dissolved without raising the money to start
a community. The Duke himself, so kindly disposed toward Owen,
died suddenly, leaving behind the infant Victoria and many credi-
tors, including “Mr. Owen.” A committee of three gentlemen from

^ Oetohei 23, 1818.

See Robert Owen, ^^Memorial to the Allied Powers Assembled in Congress
at Aix-la-Chapelle . . . Life, by Robert Owen, lA, 212-222 (Appendix 0).

See Idtd,

22 Robert Owen, Life, 1, 186.

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85

Leeds, headed by Edward Baines, visited Xew Lanark and reported
favorably on what they saw to the Guardians of the Poor at Leeds
Owen stood twice for Parliament but failed each time and learned
something of the ways of pocket boroughs.

Though Owen was being rapidly pushed into outer darkness by
the great interests he had so particularly offended, he still was
able to command public attention. Early in 1820 the County of
Lanark requested Owen to make a report on %Tays and means to
relieve the public distress. Owen responded with his famous ‘^Ee-
port to the County of Lanark. . . Here he laid down his economic
principles with greater detail than ever before. He dealt with the
arguments of the Malthusians but certainly not to the satisfaction
of the followers of Malthus. He saw in spade husbandry the pos-
sibilities of unlimited agricultural production, and, most signifi-
cant of ail, he laid down the labor theory of value that labor is the
source of all value and should therefore be the measure of value.

At the start of his report, Owen set forth his position by giving
the following as the basis of his economic doctrine :

1st. — That manual labour, properly directed, is the source of all ’^Tealth, and
of national prosperity.

2nd — That, when properly directed, labour is of far more value to the com-
munity than the expense necessary to maintain the labourer in considerable
comfort.

3i.a, — That manual labour, properly directed, may be made to continue of
this value in all parts of the world, under any supposable increase of its popu-
lation, for many centuries to come.

4th. — That, under a proper direction of manual labour, Great Britain and
its dependencies may be made to support an incalculable increase of popula-
tion, most advantageously for all its inhabitants.

5th. — That when manual labour shall be so directed, it will be found that
population cannot, for many years, be stimulated to advance as rapidly as
society might be benefited by its increase.®

Owen then went into the problem of distribution of wealth. He
argued that every addition to scientific productive power brought
increased wealth, but under the existing system there was no way
to market the goods created by the new productive power. What
was to be done? Owen’s answer was not what might be expected
from one who bad attacked the principle of private property. He

== Eolbert Owen, “Eeport to the County of Lanark, of a Plan for Relieving
Public Distress and Removing Discontent . . . ,” by Robert Owen, Ia,
263-320 (Appendix S).

86

Bohert Owen

did not advocate tlie socialization of the means of production and
distribution but came out for replacing gold and silver as stand-
ards of value by ‘'human labour.” It was his way of escape from
the dilemma with which England was faced — ^tailors and bakers,
mill hands and butchers, eager to produce goods but unable to
bring about the exchanges. David Ricardo, his skeptical friend
who looked very much askance at “Mr. Owen’s schemes,” had in-
advertently lent support to them. He had propounded a theory of
value that was identical with Owen’s, but naturally he was not
prepared to endorse Owen’s theory of a currency based simply
upon labor.

After having delivered himself of his new money doctrine, Owen
then proceeded to develop his ideas of spade husbandry. On the
basis of experiments conducted by William Falla of Gateshead,
Owen stood ready to discard the plow in favor of the spade Falla
had been able practically to double the yield of wheat by the use
of the spade at a cost of five shillings an acre more than that of the
plow.'^^

It was a curiously backward step for Owen to take. He who stood
for so much that has come to pass advocated a technique in agricul-
ture that seems primitive indeed. Time has done nothing to justify
his position. But he was driven on by the necessity of finding a
temporary means to employ the poor and at the same time to satisfy
the arguments of the Malthusians, who foresaw scarcity of food
in Owen’s plans.

Though there was much of spade husbandry in the report — and
that seems at first to have caught the fancy of the committee of
the county, — Owen lost but little time in getting down to his more
fundamental ideas for the reorganization of society. Once more he
presented his cooperative villages laid out in the form of a paral-
lelogram with the inhabitants working harmoniously at agricul-
tural tasks supplemented by small manufacturing. The villages
were to be composed of 300 to 2,000 persons, depending upon the
amount of land to be cultivated. The people were to be fed in com-
mon dining rooms ; individual kitchens were to be done away with
as uneconomical. Private apartments were to be provided for the
adults, but the children, while under instruction, were to have
separate quarters.

See md.

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87

Struck by the utility and simpleness of tbe Roman manner of
dress and tke dress of tiie HigManders of Scotland, Owen planned
that his villagers should he similarly attired. He thought it a step
in the direction of economy and physical well-being. Perhaps he
did not realize the opposition that might develop from the feminine
portion of his villagers.

He went on to explain his plans for the education of the children,
for the superintendence of the various enterprises, and for the
governance of the villages. Owen’s ideas on government did not
run along democratic channels. For instance, he declared that vil-
lages founded by ^landowners and capitalists, public companies,
parishes, or counties, will be under the direction of the individuals
whom these powers may appoint to superintend them, and will
of course be subject to the rules and regulations laid down by their
founders.”^

But the communities formed by the middle class and working
class were to be self-governing. “Their affairs should be conducted
by a committee, composed of all the members of the association
between certain ages — for instance, of those betw^een thirty-five and
forty-five, or between forty and fifty.”^

Owen’s optimism was at times truly boundless. Writing of these
working-class associations, he declared :

As all are to be trained and educated together and without distinction, they
will be delightful companions and associates, intimately acquainted with each
other’s inmost thoughts. There will be no foundation for disguise or deceit
of any kindj all will be as open as the hearts and feelings of young children
before they are trained (as they necessarily are under the present system,) in
complicated arts of deception. At the same time their whole conduct will be
regulated by a sound and rational discretion and intelligence, such as human
beings trained and placed as they have hitherto been will deem it visionary
to expect, and impossible to attain, in every-day practice.

The superior advantages which these associations will speedily possess, and
the still greater superiority of knowledge which they will readily acquire, will
preclude on their parts the smallest desire for what are now called honours
and peculiar privileges.^

Owen, carried on by a vision, just could not see any depravity
in human nature. The people in these middle- and working-class
associations would he so well trained and contented that they would
not interfere with the honors and privileges of the higher orders.

25 lUd. ^ Ibid. ^ Ibid,

88

Boiert Owen

Major Torrens, and other economists before Mm, had asked
Owen to explain how his communities were to stand with respect
to the ontside world where an individualistic economy prevailed.^®
Were they to live isolated economically from competitive society,
or were they to carry on trade with it ? Torrens pointed out that
if they did sell their goods in the general market they would find
themselves subjected to all the evils incidental to the competitive
order. They would be at the mercy of price flLUCtuations and good
and bad business — bugbears which Owen promised to eradicate.
If they chose to be self-supporting, then they would find their costs
of production much higher than the outside world, because they
would not be able to effect the division of labor that would be pos-
sible in a more complex society.

These were difficult problems to deal with and perhaps not to be
solved without making the communities much more extensive at
the start than Owen planned. However, Owen set to work on these
objections by arguing that great economies could be made in pro-
duction by eliminating all the wastes so characteristic of competi-
tive enterprises. People could be fed and clothed much more
economically. The absence of selfishness and irrational behavior
would make possible a surplus of products. This surplus might be
exchanged with other establishments of a like nature wMch were
sure to be started Then too, Owen hoped for the creation of a
labor standard of value, ^‘and as there will always be a progressive
advance in the amount of labour, manual, mental, and scientific,
if we suppose population to increase under these arrangements,
there will be in the same proportion a perpetually extending mar-
ket or demand for all the industry of society, whatever may be its
extent. Under such arrangements what are technically called ‘bad
times,’ can never occur.”“®

Owen saw nothing in the formation of his associations that would
interfere with ordinary activities of the general government. In
fact, he declared that courts of law, prisoners, and all the machin-
ery for taking care of wrongdoers would not be required. Further-

See ^^Mr. Owen’s Plans for Believing the ISTational Distress,” JEdinhurgh
jReview, XXXII, 453-477 ( October, 1819) . TMs article was not signed by Major
Torrens, but it was obviously written by him. The arguments and phraseology
were his

Bobert Owen, ^^Beport to the County of Lanark, of a Plan for Believing
Public Distress and Bemoving Discontent . . . L^/e, by Bobert Owen, Ia, 263-
320 (Appendix S).

The Whole World

89

more, his system of physical education would be the best training
to make good soldiers to defend the country, but this did not mean
that Owen condoned war, ‘^Men surely cannot with truth be termed
rational beings until they shall discover and put in practice the
principles which shall enable them to conduct their affairs With-
out war.”®*^

And so Owen laid before the county of Lanark his plan for curing
the economic sickness that spread over the land But the gentlemen
of that county expressed mild interest only in spade husbandry,
one of the ^^more practical parts’^ of the program."^

The ^'Report to the County of Lanark” now passed on into his-
tory. It was Robert Owen’s answer to the cries of the hungry; but
those who were weU. fed and well clothed merely intoned the creed
of Malthus. And so in England the poor starved in the midst of
plenty. The report takes its place alongside other great dream-
worlds fabricated ont of a longing to show men the way to live the
life of reason.

The poor in Ireland were also starving. And so "'Air. Owen,”
not the least east down by his failure to establish a single commu-
nity in Britain, sailed for Ireland in 1822. He deterniined on mak-
ing a tour of the country before he made any proposals or held
any meetings According!}", he spent many weeks in the company
of Captain Macdonald and an agricultural expert studying condi-
tions in the country. He was very well received by the nobility
and people of consequence. He wrote home to Mrs. Owen giving
an account of his interview with the Lord Lieutenant, a visit to
the Duke of Leinster, and the prospects of a stay with Lord Clon-
curry.®‘ There were more letters to her all filled with the spirit of
exuberance for the success of his plans for Ireland.

On March 1, 1823, Owen wrote a letter to the nobility, gentry,
clergy, and inhabitants of Ireland dilating upon the richness of
the soil and other natural resources of the country. He declared the
island able to support a much larger number than seven millions,
its present population. But at the same time, he found the most
terrible distress prevailing in all parts of the country . This poverty,
he declared, was due to the wrong system under which the Irish

^lUd.

See ibid.

^ See letter, October 31, 1822, in Bcbert Owen Correspondence, MSS, Man-
ebester Collection.

90

Boiert Owen

people worked. And so lie promised that on March 18, 1823, at the
Rotunda in Dublin he would reveal to the people his plan of salva-
tion for them.

The great day came with Owen ready to reveal the secret. All
the pride and chivalry of Ireland were gathered in the Rotunda
that day.

^Trom an early hour in the day,’’ a witness related, ^^equipages
blocked up the different entrances to the Rotunda, and the Round
Room was as crowded as we have ever seen it on any former occa-
sion with ladies and gentlemen. Among the company were — ^the
Duke of Leinster, the Earl of Meath, Lord Cloncurry, the most
Rev. Doctors Troy and Murray, the Surgeon-General, the Duchess
of Leinster, Lady Rossmore, &c. &c. A great portion of the room
was railed in for the accomodation of Ladies, but this space was
found inadequate to contain the number present, and some of the
remote benches consequently vied in brilliancy with the selected
spot.

^^At a quarter-past twelve o’clock, the Right Hon. the Lord
Mayor took the Chair, amid loud applause.”®® Then “Mr. Owen”
entered and was received with much enthusiasm.

Owen settled down into reading a paper which took three hours.
He pointed out all the errors of the old system of society and then
drew a rosy picture of the promised land under the “New System.”
Of course he could not resist the opportunity to hurl a challenge
at the clergy. He begged them to answer such questions as these :

Are the inhabitants of the world agreed, or divided, upon the subject of
religion?

Are the divisions on the subject of religion created by nature, or by in-
struction?®*

At the conclusion of his address, Owen moved that the meeting
be adjourned to April 7. But the clerical gentlemen in the vast
audience, being much offended at Owen’s antireligious remarks,
took occasion to block this move for adjournment to a later date
and moved that the meeting adjourn sine die.

The Reverend Dunne, who moved this amendment, declared that
he preferred seeing the peasantry “residing in their own cottages”

^^Meetiug at the Eotuuda,^' JSfew Sarmony Gazette, 1, 145-147 (February
8, 1826).

lUd., 153-155 (February 8, 1826).

The Whole World

91

than in Owen’s ^^barracks.” And then he went on to speak of Owen
as ^‘so visionary in his ideas, that at times he appeared not to con-
sider himself as a mortal of this world, and sometimes he seemed

scarcely to think that he wonld be immortal in another

This sally was met by boos and hisses ; whereupon Dunne retali-
ated by declaring that the disapprobation expressed toward him
came from a flock of geese. This brought about much noise and con-
fusion. The audience after sitting patiently for three hours was
now in a restless mood. But Dunne went on with more objections
to Owen : '^The system recommended by BIr. Owen would go to cut
the sacred tie between landlord and tenant, and dissolve the dis-
tinctions between rich and poor.”®®

There was more from Dunne in the same vein, and then other
clergymen arose to protest against Owen’s system. The Reverend
Singer “called on them not to sacrifice their Bible to Blr. Owen’s
pamphlet, nor their Redeemer to BIr. Owen’s metaphysics.”

Owen had indeed aroused the clergy to bitter opposition, thereby
providing good entertainment for the audience but doing little
for his cause. However, there were other meetings equally well
attended by the aristocracy; and, though Owen did not speak
as long as three hours, there was no lack of resistance from his
enemies, the clergy. In the end the meetings came to nothing;
although Owen brought into being the Hibernian Philanthropic
Society, an organization that held a meeting and raised money.
It was reported that the secretary’s table was covered with bank
notes, but the total was not enough to launch one of Owen’s commu-
nities. And so the curtain fell upon the Irish episode.

169-171 (February 22, 1826).

lUd.

CHAPTER X

THE ADYENTUEE MAGHIFICEHT

T o ENGLAND OWEN had preached the gospel of the New Moral
World, but England had received him not. Now came new
hope from America. Off on the banks of the Wabash stretched
the fertile lands of the Rappites. These pious followers of Father
Rapp had made a garden spot of southwestern Indiana. Living
as a community, but practicing celibacy, they accepted as law
the decrees of their leader. And now, for reasons known only to
himself, Rapp commissioned George Flower, his agent, to find a
buyer for the great tract under his rule. Flower met Owen and
laid before him the proposition of buying Father Rapp’s empire.
Owen was at once impressed and made plans to journey to America.

America lay before him — a land of dazzling hope — ^living su-
premely in tomorrow. What finer field could he find to build his
dream world? Indeed, the America of the ’twenties was a land
without equal in the history of civilization. Here lay whole em-
pires of virgin soil, ready for the ax and plow of the pioneer.
Yet much already had been done by a people abounding in energy
and filled with such a spirit of hope and confidence that they
paused before no obstacles. The Mississippi and beyond had been
reached by the advance guard of an army of settlers whose dreams
comprehended the conquest of the continent itself.

With such vast and splendid material opportunities unfolding,
what possible place could one find for a cooperative society founded
upon the common ownership of property ? Indeed, individualism
appeared to be running riot, and justly so in a land so primitive
and little bound by custom. Yet so strange is the paradox of life
that never in so short a space — ^the span of years stretching from
the advent of Owen to the Civil War — ^have ever arisen more
utopian schemes to solve men’s spiritual and material needs.

Prom the Rhine Valley pietistic sects bent on an ideal way of
life came to the New World. Mennonites, Shakers, Quakers, Morav-
ians found in America the lure for a life more abundant. For
decades they poured into the promised lands. And others came
dreaming dreams of spiritual and economic freedom.

[ 92 ]

93

The Adventure Magnificent

Perliaps this accounts for the great outpouring of idealism which
came in Oweii^s day. While the great philanthropist struggled to
make men over at New Harmony, Joseph Smith was giving to the
world the message from the golden plates. A little later, Brook
Farm flowered out into an association after the plan of Fourier.
The Fox sisters made contact wdth the other world. Horace Greeley
opened the columns of the New York Tribune to every new idea
carried along by the winds of freedom.

Not only was America swarming with seels and ideas, but travel-
ers landed daily in New York and Philadelphia drawui on by
the attraction of a young republic trying an experiment in self-
government. They were not deterred by stories of crowded inns
with bug-infested beds or daunted by the tales of roads that were
bottomless pits.

Many made their way into the South and marveled that men
should be slaves in the land of the free. The Englishmen ^vhc came
were shocked at the uncouthness displayed by their cousins of
the frontier. But all were impressed by the pride exhibited by
Americans in the achievements of the republic.

Accompanied by his son, William, and Captain McDonald,
Owen landed in America in the fall of 1824 Owen’s fame had
preceded him to America. He was known as the successful cotton
manufacturer philanthropically inclined, with a record of having
transformed New Lanark into a model town. Some inkling of his
heresies had reached the ears of ministers of the gospel, but he
was everywhere received as a distinguished personage. By this
time, Owen had turned into a prophet possessed of but one idea :
his new social system. In every possible place, on a packet boat,
in an inn, or in a public assembly, Owen preached the gospel of
the New Moral World. Listeners he was never without. Young
and old, unsophisticated and those who were skeptical, ail gave
him ear.

A day by day account of Owen’s movements after reaching
America is given in his son William’s diary. It appears that the
father was anxious to see some of the religious communities in
action. After having landed at New York, Owen and his party
took a steamboat up the river to Albany. From that place, armed
with a letter from DeWitt Clinton, they journeyed seven miles to
the Shaker colony at Waterwiteh. What they saw in this religious

94

Boibert Owen

colony was simple-minded people working industriously — spin-
ning, weaving, carpentering, and all the work characteristic of
an agricultural community on a plane of economic self-sufficiency.
Owen took every opportunity to question them on their methods
and at the same time let it be known that he too was about to
launch a community. “When my father talked of establishing com-
munities,” William Owen’s diary reads, “they asked: of Quakers?
or Jews?., or what? and shook their heads when they found it
was for all sects.”"^

They had other ideas of the requirements for a successful
community.

While walking down a hill which eominands a heantiful view of Albany
and the river [William Owen contimied,] we met two shakers returning with
goods in a couple of carts. We told them we were much pleased with what
we had seen, upon which one asked if we would like to remain with them.
We said we would make some communities still better than theirs and that
they would come to see us. He asked if we forbid marriage. We said no. He
replied then you ean^t agree; there will be continual quarrels.^

After visiting the Shaker colonies, and viewing the newly com-
pleted Erie Canal, Owen and party took passage down the river.
From New York they proceeded by stage and by boat to Phila-
delphia.

It may be interesting to note that while in Philadelphia Owen
was subjected to some high-pressure salesmanship on the part of
Flower, who, it must be remembered, had been commissioned to
dispose of the Harmony settlement by the Rappites. “Mr. Flower
said he had written to his son to buy Harmony himself,” William
Owen entered in his diary, “if he did not arrive before a fixed
day, I think the 20th December. Mr. Stuckman, a druggist, called
and said he knew several individuals ready to join a community
both here and at Pittsburgh.”^

It was while in Philadelphia that Owen met Madame Fretageot,
a French woman conducting a school for William Maclure in
Philadelphia. Maclure was a wealthy philanthropist with a scien-
tific interest in geology and a great penchant for industrial edu-
cation. Madame Fretageot was at once delighted with Owen’s

^ William Owen, ^^Diary of William Owen. Trom Hov. 10, 1824, to April 20,
1826,^^ Indiana Sistorical Society Publications, IV, 7-134.

" Ibid.

nbid.

The Adventure 'Magnificent 95

plans for a community at “Harmonie/’ After meeting Owen, slie
wrote at once to Maelure, who was with his school in Spain :

You have uo idea what pleasure I felt when I was talking by the side of
a man whose actions and principles are so much in harmony ivith mine.
When he said that children must be taken just w’hen born in order to write
in those blank papers but what is correct, I felt an increase of desire to
arrive at that period in my life when as much by economy and the help of
friends, I shall be able to put in practice that project of taking little babies,
who will he absolutely mine. When he entered m my house, I took his hand,
saying, There is the man I desired so much to converse with! and }ou are,
said he, the woman that I wish to see.*

A sliort time later, Madame Fretageot was in New Harmony
filled with enthusiasm for Owen’s principles. She was still with
Maelure, for he had early returned to America and tlirowm in his
lot with Owen at New Harmony. Maelure assumed the burden of
managing the schools in the community, while Madame Fretageot
taught the children.

From Philadelphia Owen pushed on to Washington, where he
arrived November 25, 1824. Visitors at the capital were not so
numerous in those days; therefore, Owen was cordially received
by the notables of the day. John Quincy Adams, the President-
elect, and Secretary of the Treasury Crawford both listened
patiently while Owen divulged his scheme for the redemption
of America. But he did not stay in the city long at this time.
Harmony was now calling him for the great adventure.

Accompanied by his son, William, who wrote dowui in his diary
the temperatures morning and evening, Owen struck off across
the mountains toward Pittsburgh. It was an interesting and re-
vealing journey to both father and son. William was much im-
pressed by the democratic manners of the landlords in the inns,
who shook hands with them at meeting and parting. He also did
not fail to note that his father talked a great deal with the ladies
they met on the way. And the steamboats intrigued him, as might
be expected; for William had a young man’s interest in things
mechanical. He marveled at the fine appearance of the boats and
their number on the river at Pittsburgh ; but evidently their en-
gines left much to be desired ; for he found the escaping steam
from the boiler very disagreeable.®

* Extracts from Letters of Madame Marie Baelos Fretageot, 1820-1833.

® See William Owen, op. at.

96

Eohert Owen

In Pittsburgh, they met Father Rapp, head of the Eappites.
Owen talked with him for a long time and, as might be expected,
sought to convert that venerable mystie to the religion of the
New Moral "World. If we are to believe William, his father suc-
ceeded. For after Owen had paused in his explanations of the
principles. Father Rapp declared he had often exclaimed to him-
self, ^^My God ! is there no man on God^s earth who has the same
opinions as myself and can help me in my plans ? I am now lucky
to have come in contact with such an one.”®

Father Rapp was apparently a good salesman and therefore
not inclined to disagree with his prospective customer. He also
took an early opportunity to explain why he wanted to leave the
Wabash. He declared that the climate did not agree with Ger-
mans; but seeing that Owen was disturbed by the information,
he hastened to add that ''the English and Americans found it
quite healthy.’^ He went on and explained that he had done as
much at Harmony for himself and the neighborhood as he could
possibly hope to do, and now a new location seemed desirable.

After this talk with Father Rapp, Owen and his son visited
Economy, which was a short distance from Pittsburgh and the
place selected for the new home of the Rappites. It was while
there that young Owen met a man named Sutton, who gave him
some interesting information on the Rappites. "Fie told me,'’ Wil-
liam set down in his diary, "that men and women who are married
sleep together ; yet Rapp's power is so great as to conquer nature.
One had, contrary to agreement, got a son by his wife. He ex-
pected to be turned off, but Rapp said 'he might have done much
worse.'

In a short time they were once more in Pittsburgh, and from
there they took a steamboat for the Wabash. They were three days
and sixteen hours traveling to Louisville. The boat stopped many
times for passengers and for cordwood to burn in the boilers.
Owen was always ready, as usual, to explain his system to anyone
who would listen. Nor did he lose any opportunity to make the
acquaintance of people living along the shore when the boat
stopped for wood. William Owen wrote of such an occurence :

A little before breakfast we made for tke OMo shore in order to take in
wood We found a boat with four or five eords in it. These cost $1.25 and $1.50

« IMd.

^ nid.

The Adveyitiire Magnificent 97

eaeli While this was being taken on board, we went to a small cottage stand-
ing on a high bank, surrounded by a little cleared land, with line sycamore
trees in front. We found there 3 females in a vetj neat house. One in par-
ticular seemed to catch my Father’s fancy

And so they sailed down the beautiful Ohio to the land of great
adventure. Owen, wrapped up in his splendid dreams, saw little
of the constantly shifting scenes of cabins in pioneer clearings and
ugly little towns planted along the banks of the river.

On December 15, Owen and his party reached Mt. Vernon,
Indiana, from where on the next da\' they started out for Har-
mony. William described the journey overland in his diary:

We walked several miles and my Father accompanied a woman on horse-
back for some distance and had a good deal of conversation with her. She
said she got many things from Harmony, hut did not like the place because
marriage was prohibited. He also talked to two women who were w^ashing
by the roadside, called Polly and Sallie French. We saw a flock of turtle
doves, some beautiful woodpeckers with red heads, etc. and a number of
grey squirrels in the woods. We were some time in Harmonic lands before
we were aware of it. During the whole distance, the land was rolling, as it
was called, and presented a flne appearance. A few miles before ve reached
the town the soil became dryer, more sandy and lighter and the character
of the woods also changed. The beech, ironwood, etc. disappeared, giving
place to more white and other oak. After travelling about 15 miles, we came
about 2 o’clock in sight of the town, lying below us about a mile off, on an
extensive bottom cleared to a good distance, winch ended near where we
stood in undulating hills on which the vmeyards stood.*^

They were now in Harmony, the village of the Rappites. There
lay before them the fruits of many years of plodding industry.
By incredible toil, the peasants under the business leadership of
Frederick Rapp, adopted son of Father George Rapp, had cleared
thousands of acres of fertile land and raised magnificent crops of
corn and wheat. They had built mills to weave cotton and woolen
cloth. Their distillery made excellent whisky, which they never
drank but sold to their less abstemious neighbors. They had built
two churches, one a frame structure standing across the street
from the large brick home of the spiritual leader. Next to the
frame church stood another more imposing church built of brick
in the shape of a Maltese cross.

Many travelers visited the village before the coming of the
Owens Some of their accounts are more graphic than ‘William

nhid.

98

Bohert Owen

Owen^s somewhat mechanical and scientific description of what
he saw. George Flower, one of the founders of an English settle-
ment in Illinois, wrote of the place as he saw it in 1819 :

A large poition of the land included in the estate was of the best quality,
between two and three thousand acres being under cultivation and fenced.
The town consisted of several brick and frame two-story houses for the use
of small families, all built after one model, with ample gardens, well fenced
and neatly cultivated, and a vast number of log cabins, neatly kept. There
weie also five or six very laige buildings, three stories high, which contained
the community families, of sixty to eighty individuals each. Eapp had a
buck mansion, a large building, with a granary of the most solid masonry,
and a large brick church, itself a curiosity, the plan, it is said, having been
given to Mr Rapp in a dream. There were four entrances to the church,
closed by folding doors,* the doors were about one hundred and twenty feet
from each other. The upper story was supported by twenty-eight pillars of
walnut, cherry, and sassafras, the walnut pillars bemg six feet in cir-
cumfeience, and twenty-five feet high,* the others were twenty-one feet high
and of proportionate circumference; a surprisingly large building for this
country. . .

The Rappites had created by their cooperative industry a mar-
velous degree of material well-being. Not only did they have an
abundance for themselves, but their surplus wheat, corn, and pork
brought in a steady flow of money. When they left Harmony their
money chests carried to the flatboats were the talk of the country-
side. While these followers of Father Rapp were envied because
of their comforts and wealth, they were looked upon with con-
tempt by their neighbors, who regarded them as superstitious and
Ignorant vassals of their leader. Indeed, Father Rapp was no
believer in enlightened education for his people, and he never
missed a chance to fortify their simple faith by tricks. For in-
stance, he managed to secure a flat stone with human footprints
carved on it, and these he represented to be the prints of the angel
Gabriel’s feet.

Common religious faith was the cement that held the Rappites
together. Father Rapp held to the principles of what he believed
to be primitive Christianity. Celibacy was enforced as a leading
article of their faith. As in so many other pietistic groups, sex
was looked upon as the cause of the fall of man. But they were
always faced with the problem of how to keep up their numbers.

Letters from Illinois , . . .

The Adventure Magnifia at 0 !^

These Wiirtemberg peasants that formed the community at Har-
mony were no exception to the rule. They were constantly com-
pelled to seek converts to keep their population large enough to
man their industries and till the fields.

It is difficult to determine just why Father Rapp left Harmony.
It will be recalled that he told Owen that the climate was not
favorable to his Germans, but the evidence available points to
other causes. It is true, however, the death rate was very high
when they first started the community at Harmony in 1815, but
in the last year of their stay only two persons died. Robert Dale
Owen thought that Rapp grew uneasy as he watched his followers
gain more leisure — ^leisure to think and perhaps become restless
under his absolute authority. He then determined to move in order
to keep them occupied with pioneer activities.'^ In any case, 30,000
acres of land were for sale, and Owen was ready to buy.

As soon as Owen had actually accomplished the purchase of
Harmony, he was anxious to be offi on a tour of speaking and
preaching the new gospel. In February of 1825, he was back in
the city of ‘Washington interviewing Adams, the President-elect,
and Monroe, the President. While in the city, he delivered two
long discourses on his New System of Society, before a distin-
guished assembly of representatives, senators, the President-elect,
and the President himself

We have the authority of John Quincy Adams that on the
second discourse Owen held his audience for three hours, during
which he read largely from a book, probably his essays.'^ He em-
phasized as usual the influence of external circumstance upon the
formation of character. He held his social teachings up to his
listeners as the “universal religion of human nature” :

TMs universal religion, as I trust it ttiU speedly become, is therefore justly
called rational religion,* its base is simple truth, and it defies v*hat man,
through error, can do against it. For this rational religion, now for the first
time declared amidst this enlightened assembly, composed of the most dis-
tinguished men of this country within its metropolis and within its capitol,
I, as a citizen of the world, claim for it the full and complete protection
which the American Constitution freely offers to mental and religious liberty

See Eobert Dale Owen, Threading My TTay^ p. 210.

The second discourse was delivered in March of 1825, one month, or there-
abouts, after the first discourse.^

John Quincy Adams, Memoirs, VI, 524.

100

Robert Owen

I claim this protection, however, not with the slightest feeling of hostility
to a single individual of the human race ; my intention is to do them good — ■
to relieve them from the error and evil by which they are now on all sides
beset; and my sole object m thus claiming protection for this new religion,
is to introduce into practice, and permanently secure, peace and good-will
among all mankind, by destroying the selfish, and establishing the social
system.^^

The National Intelligencer declared that the three-hour dis-
course was ^listened to with great respect and attention.’’"'^ One
Congressman who attended gave his opinion that Owen’s scheme
was not applicable to America on a large scale, but it might be made
to work in isolated cases."^®

Not only was Owen well received at the capital by the President
and the President-elect, but Jefferson and Madison each enter-
tained him for several days. Of course we have only Owen’s state-
ment for the enthusiasm with which he was greeted by these two
political sages.

About the time of Owen’s arrival in America in October of 1824,
a Cornelius Camden Blatchly, an Owen sympathizer, had sent a
pamphlet to Jefferson, probably a copy of Owen’s New View of
Society. Jefferson, then eighty-one years old, wrote a long letter
dated October 22, 1824, to Blatchly :

Sir • I return tbauks for tbe pamphlet you have been so kind as to send me
on the subject of commonwealths. Its moral principles merit entire approba-
tion, its philanthropy especially, and its views of the equal rights of man.
That, on the principle of a communion of property, small societies, may
exist in habits of virtue, order, industry and peace; and consequently, in a
state of as much happiness as heaven has been pleased to deal out to im-
perfect humanity, I can readily conceive, and, indeed, have seen its proofs
in various small societies, which have been constituted on that principle;
but I do not feel authorized to conclude from these that an extended society,
like that of the United States, or of an individual state, could be governed,
happily on the same principle.

I look to the diffusion of light and education, as the resource most to be
relied on, for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue and advancing
the happiness of man. That every man shall be made virtuous, by any process
whatever, is, indeed, no more to be expected than that every tree shall be
made to bear fruit, and every plant nourishment — ^the briar and bramble
can never become the vine and olive — ^but their asperities may be softened

Robert Owen, Two Discourses on A New System of Society; as Delivered
m the Nall of Bepresentatwes of the United States . . . .

March 7, 1825.

See the National Intelligencer (Washington, U.C.), March 21, 1825.

101

The Adventure Magnificent

by culttirej and tbeir properties improved to usefulness m the order and
economy of the world. And, I do hope, that in the present spirit of extendnij?,
to the great mass of mankind, the blessings of instruction, I see a pros[)ect
of great advancement in the happiness of the human race, and that tins
may proceed to an indefinite, although not to an infinite, degree. 'Wislimg
every success to the views of your society, which their hopes can promise, and
thanking you most particularly for the kind expression of your letter towards
myself, I salute you with assurances of great esteem and respect,

Thomas Jcffeuson.^’

Age had not dimmed the clear vision of Jefferson; nor had time
broken his faith in the possibility of human betterment.

Madison, also far in years, was interested in Owen's experiment ;
but his criticism of it showed less of philosophical detachment, so
much a part of Jefferson’s thinking. Madison’s opinion of Owen’s
schemes is given in a letter written to Nicholas P. Trist. After dis-
cussing other matters, Madison proceeded to a discussion of Owen
in particular. He observed that the disoi'dered economic conditions
in Great Britain furnished an opportunity for Owen to present
his panacea, but he declared that ‘‘Such diseases are however too
deeply rooted in human society to admit of more than — great
palliatives.”^^ He went on to illustrate how crop failures might
bring about increased prices of food stuffs without raising wages
and that wages might even be reduced in such a contingency. He
mentioned also the increase of labor-saving machinery as a cause
of unemployment and distress. Madison was impressed with the
“caprice of fashion” as a cause of economic distress. “Take for a
sufficient illustration a single fact,” he wrote to Trist. “When the
present King of England was Prince of Wales, lie introduced the
use of shoe-strings instead of shoe-buckles. The effect on the con-
dition of Buckle-makers was such that he received addresses from
many thousands of them praying him as the arbiter of fashion,
to save them from starving by restoring the taste for Buckles in
preference to strings . .

Madison apparently was not mindful that while buckle makers
might lose out, shoelace makers would prosper.

The loss of foreign markets for one cause or another he thought
a cause of depression in an industrial and commercial society be-

In Papers of Thomets J effersem, CGXXIII.

“ April, 1827, in Papers of Nicholas P* Trist j IV.

102

Robert Owen

yond the control of men. Then Madison gave a very solid argument
against Owen’s latest panacea :

Mr. Owen’s remedy for these viecissitudes, implies that labour will be
relished without the ordinary impulses to it; that the love of equality will
supersede the desire for distinction ; and the increasing leisure, from improve*
ments of machinery, will promote intellectual cultivation, moral enjoyment
and innocent amusements, without any of the vicious resorts, for the ennui
of idleness. Custom is properly called a second nature. Mr. Owen makes it
nature herself. His enterprize is nevertheless an interesting one. It will throw
light on the maximum to which the force of education or habit can be carried ;
or like Helvetius’ attempt to shew that all men came from the hand of nature
perfectly equal, and owe every intellectual or moral difference, to the education
of circumstance; though failing of its entire object, that of proving the
means to be all sufficient, will tend to a fuller sense of their great importance

Madison had still another argument against Owen’s plan — an
argument he used directly with Owen when the latter Tisited him.
He invoked the Malthusian doctrine of population to show how
hopeless the case was for the working classes :

Even Mr. Owen’s scheme with all the sweep he assumes for it, would not
avoid the pressure in question [pressure of population on food]. As it admits
of marriages, and it would gain nothing by prohibiting them, I asked him,
what was to be done after there should be a plenum of population for all the
food his lots of ground could be made to produce. His answer was that the
earth could be made indefinitely productive, by a deeper and deeper cultiva-
tion. Being easily convinced of this error, his resort was to colonization, and
vacant regions — But your plan is to cover, and that rapidly, the whole earth
with flourishing communities. What then is to become of the increasing popu-
lation? This was too remote a consideration to require personal attention, an
answer prudent, if not conclusive.^^

Truly Malthus had conquered the world of thought. Here was
Madison in far-off America — a land of unpeopled wildernesses —
putting up a front against reform and hasiug it on Malthus. Time
has proved Owen more nearly right than Madison. In all the
dark days of recent economic depressions, we have never once
heard the cry that we are overpopulated, though more than a
century has elapsed since Madison and Owen sat together talking
social reform.

The newspapers and journals in America at this time took more
t,tiqTi passing notice of Owen’s discourses. The comment was on the
whole favorable, for little notice was taken at the start of his

“ Ibid. <^Ihicl.

The Adventure Magnifies nt 103

religions heresies The interest he aroused was partly due to his
reputation for philanthropy and wealth and partly due to the
noYelty of the eommiinity idea he advocated.

A reviewer of Owen’s Two Discourses, writing in the Cincinmfi
Literary Gazette, commented:

As in every other theme of great interest, a diversity of opinion prevails
upon the practicability and utility of his plans — according to the knowl-
edge, prejudices and judgment of those who form them. — But, upon the
whole, the geneial impression is not unfavorable; and the newspapers, those
gieat vehicles of public sentiment, have generally treated Mr Owen and his
scheme with respect, and offered their good wishes for his success This is,
perhaps, more than he could have expected, considering how many classes of
society are attacked by his system; — ^tlie inffuentiai, — ^the amldtious, — the
w^ealthy, — ^the litigious, — ^the idle, — ^the seetaiian, &e.; who null be arrayed
in opposition to its practical operations, whenever they perceive its success,
and become afraid of the contagion of universal equality, freedom, virtue,
and happiness.^

While in Washington during the early spring of 1S25, Owen
not only spoke twice in the House of Representatives but issued a
manifesto announcing that ‘‘a new society is about to be formed
at Harmony in Indiana.” He invited all those who were in stun-
pathy with his ideas to join him in the enterprise, which was to be
called New Harmony.

Straightway there trouped toward New Harmony the mentally
lame, halt, and blind as well as others. Nothing could have been
more fatal to Owen’s plans. A small hand-picked group of socially
minded people might have made the experiment possible, but
Owen’s optimism knew no bounds. The whole of the United States
lay within his grasp, and so he marched on without the slightest
hesitation.

By April he was back in New Harmony ready to launch his
society and the New Moral World. The followers of Father Rapp
had departed, taking their gold with them hut leaving behind
their well-built houses and their public buildings together with
their plants for the manufacture of woolen goods, candles, beer,
whisk}^, leather, and, in fact, the means for supplying a frontier
community with almost all the articles winch were required at that
time.

155 (May 14, 1825).

104

Boiert Owen

The New Harmony Gazette, official organ of the new community,
early published a description of the town at the time of the open-
ing up of the new society :

The village is regularly laid out in squares, forming four streets, running
north and south, and six running east and west: the whole included in six
wards, containing 35 brick, 45 frame, and about 100 log buildings, occupied
for various purposes. Some of the buildings are spacious and costly, the
principal of which are the Town Hall, the Church, the Mansion House,
formerly occupied by Mr. Rapp, the Public Store and Manufactories, the
Boarding School, and several large boarding houses for the accommodation
of the members of the Society.^

From the account given in the Gazette as well as the complaints
made by William Owen and others, it was evident that the mills
and the manufacturing plants suffered from lack of skilled work-
ers to man them. The town filled up all too quickly with people
who were idlers and mere talkers, leaving no room for those who
might have carried on the substantial part of the enterprise.

Into this milieu came Owen that spring of 1825. The Wabash,
lately swollen by spring rains and melting snow, was settling back
into its channel. The damp meadows steaming in the warm sun-
shine were fairly popping with vegetation. Wild flowers, grass,
and volunteer corn and wheat pushed through the warm rich soil.
In the wooded lots, wild turkeys and pigs scampered about In-
deed, the swine left behind by the Eappites soon ate up the village
gardens, while Owen’s followers debated over constitutions and
discussed the fundamentals of a rational society.

When Owen arrived, the village was packed with eager en-
thusiasts anxious to partake of the benefits of a society where
poverty and ignorance were to be no more, where their children
were to be given such an education as the philosophers had only
dreamed about.

The first step was to organize a preliminary society. All eyes
turned to Owen, whose boundless confidence and benevolence had
won the hearts of everyone. His address to the assembled Utopians
in the old Kappite meeting house was characteristic :

I am come to tbis country, to introduce an entire new state of society; to
change it from the ignorant, selfish system, to an enlightened, social system.

“I, 22 (October 15, 1825).

The Adventure Magiiiiice^it 105

TvMch shall gradually unite all interests into one, and remove all cause for
contest between individuals

Owen, smiling benevolently upon the listening multitude, went
on to explain the blessings of the new social system, not forgetting
to expound his gospel of the all-determining character of circum-
stance in shaping the lives of individuals. And then in recognition
of the selfish habits that Ms disciples may have acquired in a per-
verse and irrational wmrld, Owen gently suggested that they must
live in a “halfway house” before they would be able to enter the
mansion of the New Moral World:

Kew-Harmony, the future name of this place, is the best halfway house I
could procure for those who are gomg to travel this extraordinar^r journey
with me; and although it is not intended to be our permanent lesidenee, I
hope it will be found not a bad traveler’s tavern, or temporary resting place,
in which we shall remain, only until wv can change our old garments, and
fully prepare ourselves for the new state of existence, into which we hope
to enter. It is, however, no light thing for men and women of all ages, to
change the habits to which they have been accustomed from infancy; and
many difficulties must be at first encountered, and many struggles with our
old feelings "while the work of regeneration shall be going forward; but
these contests with our old habits and feelmgs ’will be of short duration ; and
I trust that even these struggles may be made useful to ourselves and to
others ^

After these remarks, Owen warned his hearers that, contrary to
his feelings, there must exist at the outset “a certain degree of
pecuniary inequality. . . But this would be only for a time, after
which all would be on a plane of perfect equality.

Owen explained to his eager listeners how he had journeyed
to Washington and had laid his plans before the general govern-
ment and how, in order to test the truth of his principles, he had
put them to the “fiery ordeal” of a public presentation so that all
men might be free to criticize. “Until I had thus, in the most public
manner I could devise,” he told his neophytes, “openly and hon-
estly declared my sentiments, and published them, I did not agree
to accept of a single family or individual; for I would, if possible,
have no one deceived, in any manner, who shall be admitted into
onr new association.”"®

“Address Delivered by Robert Owen, of New-Lanark . . . New Earmomj
Gazette, 1, 1-2 (October 1, 1825),

^im.

106

Bohert Owen

The preliminary constitution was then presented by Owen, but
no action was taken on it until May, 1825, when it was adopted
and the Preliminary Society came into being.

The fundamental principles involved in the constitution were
unmistakably set forth. The society was ^Termed to improve the
character and condition of its own members, and to prepare them
to become associates in Independent Communities, having common
property.”^ The members were all to be equal in rank, that is, as
nearly equal as possible.

The affairs of the society were to be handled by a committee,
all of whose members were to be named by Owen. But in actual
practice, Owen named only four members of the committee, leav-
ing the rest to be elected by the community.

Each family was to have a credit at the community store for
necessary goods. It appears that the maximum for a member was
placed at $180. Women were not regarded as members and received
no credit unless they did work for the society.”®

The constitution provided for the best possible education of the
children of the members. Indeed, the schools, as at New Lanark,
came to be the chief feature of the place.

Although Owen was not sympathetic with religious teaching and
practice, he laid down the principle that complete liberty of con-
science and worship were to be maintained.^®

There was little or nothing in the constitution that could be
criticized, except perhaps that a realist might say it left far too
much independence of action to the members.

Thus the society was launched, Owen beaming and smiling ap-
proval at the ardent zeal of his followers There can be no ques-
tion about his ability to inspire people. Thomas Pears, one of the
Owenites, wrote thus of Owen :

You will perhaps smile at this but I have just returned from hearing Mr.
Owen, and I am then always in the hills. I do not know how it is, — ^he is not
an orator , but here he appears to have the power of managing the feelings
of all at his will. The day before our arrival here, the report of the com-

“The Constitution of the Preliminary Society of New-Harmony,*, May 1,
1825,^^ New Harmony Gazette, I, 2-3 (October 1, 1825).

^®See letter of Thomas Pears to Benjamin Bakewell, June 2, 1825, in An
Adventure in Happiness Fapers of Thomas and Sarah Pears, pp. 13-14. Here-
after this work will be cited as Pears Papers.

See “The Constitution of the Preliminary Society of New-Harmony; May
1, 1825,’^ New Harmony Gazette, 1, 2-3 (October 1, 1825).

107

The xidvcyxture Magnificnii

mittee of wMeh I send you a copy, was made public: and wben all found
the credit they possessed to be very small, dissatisfaction prevailed. A day
or two after, Mr. Owen spoke, and it vanishedA^

Owen stayed on at New Harmony but a little over a montli after
tile formation of the Preliminary Society and then started back
to Scotland to bring bis family to Indiana. He was gone from the
early part of June to the following January. And this was a very
critical time in the life of the young community. But as time went
on, Owen found it increasingly difficult to remain in any one place.
He was everlastingly giving lectures and holding meetings. Appar-
ently the everyday business of administering an organization did
not have the appeal that the lecture platform held.

Letter of Thomas Pears to Benjamin Bakewell, June 2, 1S25, in Fears
Papers j p. 13.

CHAPTER XI

THE MAD UTOPIANS

S UMMER CAME rolling down on the disciples of the New Moral
World — stnnmer, hot and humid, bringing great clouds of
mosquitoes from the Wabash. The pigs grunted and rooted
unchecked. The boys and girls of the ^^New System of Society,”
now entirely the creatures of circumstances, ran wild while their
elders, exercising the inherent perversity of human nature, found
fault with one another.

It was not strange that they found fault with one another from
the very start j for they were a most heterogeneous crowd drawn
from all walks of life. And as the venture moved along through
the months to 1827, the contrasts in personalities and cultures
became even more marked. There were Thomas Pears and his wife,
Sarah, coming from good substantial upper-middle-class stock.
Both were idealistically inclined with strong intellectual interests.
William Pelham, formerly postmaster at Zanesville, Ohio, wanted
to spend his declining years in an atmosphere of mental liberty,
so he said. Virginia Dupalais, an artistocratic young women, came
to seek forgetfulness after an unhappy love affair. There were
backwoodsmen too, who were used to pork and hominy and very
few restraints. Later there arrived on the ^‘Boat-Load of Knowl-
edge” such a company of talent as seldom has been seen. Scientists
and scholars they were, but not very good material for a community
based upon equality.

Trials and tribulations came fast on the heels of Owen’s depar-
ture for England. The committee left in charge faced growing
discontent. In the first place, the maximum of $180 a year for a
family was considered too little. Thomas Pears wrote back to
Pittsburgh :

The Good Folks, as you call us, are not satisfied witk their allowance, and
indeed it is impossible they should be, as it will not support them; and
alterations are therefore continually making therein by order of the Com-
mittee, either for special sums, or for a certain per centage on the stated
allowance; which being partial cannot give satisfaction.^

^ Letter of Thomas Pears to Benjamin Bakewell, September 2, 1825, in Fears
Papers, pp. 24-29.

[ 108 ]

109

The Mad Utopians

Pelham, in his letters home, explained how the business of earing
for the needs of the members was organized :

As to dollars & cents, they are words seldom heard any where but in the
public store, which is like all other trading shops, differing however in this,
that every head of a family or single unmarried member uneonneered with
a family, instead of carrying money to the store, is fuinished a Pass-bouk
in which he is charged Avith what he buys, and is credited every iveek with
the amount of his earnings. These pass-books exhibit a curious medley of
items, bacon, chickens, eggs, melons, cucumbers, butter, tea, sugar, coffee
&c &e with all the varieties of store goods on the debit side, while on tlie
other are placed the credits of the individuals. I have been several dajs
employed in overhauling and balancing these pass-books (the clerk whose
particular duty it is, being sick) and this has given me the opportunity of
making these observations, ivluch indeed anyone may do who will take the
trouble of looking over them, for they are open to the inspection of all who
choose to examine them. There are about 300 of these pass-books continually
in motion.-

Tbougb there was complaint about tbe allowances for maiiiten-
anee, there was enough to eat at New Harmony; the rich ‘‘Mr.
Owen of New Lanark’^ had seen to that. But housing conditions
were bad. Often two and three families were compelled to lixe in
one house. Such an arrangement was not conducive to the sweet
accord that Owen preached.

In that first fateful summer of the colony’s existence when the
fields should have been made to produce an abundance of wheat,
corn, and vegetables, little or nothing was raised. As Thomas
Pears wrote, “The hogs have been our Lords and i\Iasters this
year in field and garden.” But the hogs were not altogether to
blame for the barren fields. There were no hands to plow and
cultivate. Each thought the other lazy, with the result that little
effort was made to raise a crop. It was as Thomas Pears wrote to
Benjamin Bakewell ;

Please tell Mr. Thomas [Thomas BakeweU] that I do not think the men
generally do work as weU as they would for themselves. Many do, but not
the majority I think. The accounts are complicated. There are now five in
the counting room, and the books not up ®

Pears wrote that the factories had not produced enough to pay
expenses and that the community would do well to pay expenses

2 Letter of William Pelham to William Creese Pelham, September 7, 1825, in
selections from Letters of William FeXham, written in ISi^S and 1826. Indiana
as Seen hy Early Travelers, pp. 368-373.

® September 2, 1825, in Fears Fayers, pp. 24r-29.

no

Robert Owen

the next year. He was writing in the early fall of 1825 after the
enterprise had been going for several months. But like many of
the other Utopians, he hoped that all would he well when the
“Master Spirit” returned from England.

Even as early as that first summer of the community at New
Harmony, the note of religious discord entered into it. There
were many Methodists and Baptists in the ill-sorted group that
made up the inhabitants. They were grievously hurt by the skepti-
cal attitude of the more intellectual members. Preachers were
allowed the use of the church to give their sermons, but it was
stipulated that they must be willing to stand the fire of questions
and criticism at the end.

Prom Pelham’s letters to his son, one gets the feeling that the air
was charged with religious controversy. He wrote of meetings —
everlasting meetings — ^in the church to which the interested were
summoned by the ringing of the bell. He sneered at the clergymen
who were the speakers on these occasions. And he was full of
praise for the discourses of Robert L. Jennings, a very liberal
young man educated as a clergyman, who answered these orthodox
preachers.

It was not very long before New Harmony had a reputation
all over America for atheism. Stories were told of blasphemy and
immorality. In the Western Luminary appeared the following
comment taken from the Western Recorder:

A Monstrous Misnomer . — gentleman of tlie first respectability, writes
from Illinois to a friend in Philadelphia, that Mr. Owen’s new settlement,
Harmony, has increased in numbers to 1150 menj and adds that it is ^^as sad
an assemblage of infidels and atheists as ever was collected ” There is no
worship among the Harmonists — ^vice, profaneness and infidelity will increase
of course, and to onr own feelings it seems that this establishment, which is
the professed offspring of infidelity, can be considered in no other light
than that of a moral experiment made with such combustible materials as
shall at length produce a tremendous explosion, like that of a second Prance
in miniature. Good will doubtless come out of it, but what will become of the
experimenters ’ *

The eastern newspapers were filled with comments and letters
having to do with Owen’s great experiment at New Harmony. The
general opinion seemed to he that Owen had gathered together a
crowd of unbelievers, who were leading a life of utter freedom

"II, 540 (March, 1826).

Ill

The 2Lad Vtopians

from ordinary moral restraints. Cursing and blasplienij '^^ere
reported to be the rule. And many declared that '^diildren
tbeir schoolmaster with impunity.’^

Stories "were circulated that free love prevailed at Xev* Har-
mony. It was natural that loose sexual relations should be linked
to religions skepticism i\Iany people argued that inasmuch as the
bars were down on belief in the Bible as the inspired word of God,
they were also removed on conduct between men and women. One
mother with three daughters at New Harmony wrote in alarm to
William Maclnre, who was then staying there, inquiring about the
morals of the place. Maclure took pains to reassure her that all
was well:

I don’t believe tlierc is a pi-'ce in the United States, or m any other country
where the married are so faithful, or the young so chaste for the !»est of all
reasons — the bribe to abuse is taken a\\ay, by all the caies, anxieties, and
troubles, of matiimony, and a family of children, being entirely removed, and
providing for them.^

Though frequently denied, such reports were, nevertheless, be-
lieved And they served to attract the most undesirable elements
to New Harmony. Owen was to blame for the situation. He came
with a message of skepticism to a frontier people whose intellectual
food was the Bible interpreted by preaeliers with a flair for sermons
breathing hell-fire and brimstone. Sex was a subject reser^'ed for
vulgar men and boys who loafed about livery stables. In polite
society or in any mixed social group, no word would be tolerated
that suggested m the most remote degree the biological facts of sex.

Early in the fall the Utopians launched a journal, the New Har-
mony Gazette. E. L. Jennings and William Pelham served as edi-
tors in the early days of its publication ; later, Eobert Dale Owen
and Fanny Wright gave it a unique character. Essays on philosoph-
ical and edneational subjects fill its pages, but the everyday life
of New Harmony is not disclosed. The squabbles that never ended
so long as New Harmony lasted as a community can only be sur-
mised by reading the Gazette. Perhaps its motto gives us the best
clue : “If we cannot reconcile all opinions, let us endeavor to unite
all hearts.”

As the weeks passed, the committee’s problems grew and grew
until it was caught in a web of utter ineffectiveness. The mills and

° American Mercury (Hartford, Coimectieiit), October 17, 1826.

112

Bohert Owen

•workshops were without hands, food became scarce, the shiftless
marched in, and living quarters became crowded. Sarah Pears
wrote despairing letters home, while William Pelham, immensely
pleased with the ^^mental freedom,^’ urged his son to join. Indeed,
the social life was delightful. Every Tuesday evening was given
over to dancing and Friday evenings to music. But such frivolity
scandalized the pious.

Young William Owen, with a strong practical sense, was toiling
to bring order out of the chaos. He was much disturbed over the
scarcity of skilled labor and wrote a long letter to his father in
December of 1825 asking for tradesmen, but at the same time he
warned his father ^Hhat we have no room for them”^

Owen received this letter as he landed in America the second
time. He paid scant heed to the warning about the lack of room ;
for he soon assembled a great group of educators to accompany
him to New Harmony.

Expectation hung on his return to the community. The many
who were troubled in heart over the growing anarchy found com-
fort in the prayer, ^'He will set all aright when he comes back to
us.^’ And so they set their faces toward the east and waited. Mean-
time, the frost stilled the whining voices of the mosquitoes, the Har-
monists gathered their scant crops, the hogs fattened on the apples
and acorns, and the merrymakers danced and sang in the great
Rappite church.

During this time, Owen, having cut loose from New Lanark,
embarked on the packet ship ''New York’' with his son, Robert Dale,
for America. He was now crusading to make America the New
Jerusalem of rationalism. While the ship cut through the wastes
of the Atlantic, Owen was busy framing a message for the Ameri-
cans-

After reminding the people whom he intended to save that their
soil and climate was rich and varied and their government free, he
proceeded to point out their shortcomings :

It is true you have derived many advantages from your European ancestors,
but it is equally true that you have transplanted a very large portion of their
errors and prejudices; you cannot therefore, enjoy to their full extent, the
benefits to which I refer, until these errors of the old world shall have been
removed

0 December 16, 1825, in CoUeetion of Letters from William Owen to Robert
Owen, MSS.

113

The Mad Vtopians

Tiie greatest and most lamentable of these are the notions: that human
nature has been so formed as to be able to believe and disbelieve, and to lo\e
and hate, at pleasure, and that there can be merit or demerit in believing or
disbelieving, and m loving or hating.

These false notions are the origin of evil, and the real cause of all sin and
misery among mankind; yet they are received and continued m direct opposi-
tion to every fact known to the human raced

These Tv^ere bold, hard words to throw at a young, self-confident
people. But Owen, the messiah, was equal to anything that might
redeem the Americans from their sinful ways. They were also
impolitic words. The pulpit and press resented them, especially
when they were leveled against revealed religion. In those days
before science had shaken religious faith and superior entertain-
ment had cut into the attendance of religious exercises, the church
occupied a position that no one could safely assault

Once back in America, Owen took every occasion to proclaim his
message and thereby draw the fire of the defenders of the faith.

Among the many journals which took issue with Owen on his
religious views was the United States Literary Gazette, Shortly
after his return to America, it published a criticism of bis gospel of
reason :

He tells us that he has devoted much time to the study of books relating to the
history, constitution, and necessities of human nature; — but in w^hat language
have the books been written, which do not teach that man never was nor ever
will be governed by reason alone ; that a knowledge of the right v^txr is not
always a sufficient mdueement to pursue it, that the affections and passions
are the master springs of human actions ; and that a system which does not
touch these, is useless and worse than useless? One book at least, he cannot
have studied, and that is — ^the Bible.®

Before Owen started for New Harmony, be beld meetings in
PMladelpbia, where be preached bis doctrine of “circumstance’^
and attacked the idea of man’s depravity. Straightway be drew
upon him the fury of those who believed that man was conceived
and born in sin. One Friday evening in PMladelpbia just before
Owen began bis lecture, a note was handed him asking that be state
explicitly bis position on man’s depravity. The writer of the note
wanted to know whether Owen’s system with all its emphasis on

^ ^'Mr. Owen’s Address to the Citizens of the United States,” Niles Begister,
XXIX, 175 (November 12, 1825).

®II, 65 (April 15, 1825).

114

Bohert Owen

eircuxnstance could be carried out if mankind was now in a “lapsed
and fallen state” due to original sin.°

Owen bad no choice but to come out boldly and expose his skep-
ticism to Ms audience. Many were so horrified that they left the
hall when he declared the Bible was no more the word of God than
other writings. A number of listeners loudly applauded, and some
shook their heads most vehemently.

Letters and editorials appeared in the New York Observer and
other journals ridiculing Owen’s philosophy of circumstance and
deploring his infidelity. The columns of the National Intelligencer
were for some weeks during the early part of 1825 devoted to the
Owenite controversy. Many of those people friendly to him wrote
letters to the paper defending Owen for his courage. One writer
declared that numerous statesmen who believed the same as Owen
were afraid to come out and boldly state their opinions as Owen
had done.^°

In all the wordy controversy over Owen, little or nothing was
said about his economic heresies. Perhaps it was not clear in the
minds of people who heard him or read his discourses just what his
economic ideas meant. In any ease he was appealing to people who
listened to doctrinal sermons and read their Bibles with great in-
dustry ; therefore, they were ready to seize upon his remarks that
bore a religious flavor.

While Owen preached the new crusade to make America rational,
William Maclure, already attracted to Owen through a visit to
New Lanark and by Madame Fretageot’s letters, came to America
ready to lend his name and throw his fortune in on the side of
Owen. The agreement entered into by these two philanthropists
was apparently not too clearly understood by them. It appears
that each was to put $150,000 into the enterprise at New Harmony,
but financial misunderstandings soon arose and came to be the
cause of much ill-feeling.

Owen entrusted Maclure with the management of the educational
program at New Harmony, and so the latter drew about him a
group of scientists and teachers of no ordinary ability. There was
Thomas Say, a zoologist of note who was destined to do some very
important work in natural science in New Harmony, Another

* See the Western Luminary, II, 389-390 (December 28, 1825).

See the National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), April 28, 1825.

115

The Mad Utopians

scientist to join Maclure was Charles Alexander Lesnenr, famous
for his work in classifying the fishes of the Great Lakes and for his
researches in botany. Gerard Troost, a Dutch geologist, also joined
the group. These men, together with a talented group of teachers,
assembled at Pittsburgh late in 1825 for the journey to New
Harmony.

Maclure built a keelhoat at Pittsburgh and prepared for the
trip down the Ohio. The boat was given the name “Philanthropist.”
And on December 8, 1825, though the winter season was far
advanced, he together with Owen and the “Boat-Load of Knowl-
edge,” as his talented colleagues were styled, pushed off for the
promised land.

Owen, accompanied by his son, Robert Dale, was now keenly
anxious to reach New Harmony. Time and time again the ice
stopped the progress of the boat, while the merry crowd on board
sang songs of the “Land of the West” they were soon to reach. But
Owen was impatient with their slow progress and finally left the
boat some time before it reached the junction of the Wabash. He
started overland, making all possible speed for New Harmony,
where he arrived January 12, 1826."^

Children and adults marched out to greet the man who was re-
garded by them as their savior. Owen beamed upon them in his
best philanthropic manner. There were music and speeches of wel-
come. “All will be well now,” they called out to one another. “He
has come back to us.”

Strangely enough Owen was delighted with what he saw and
heard. He took steps immediately to organize a permanent society
and cut short the period of probation. On J anuary 25, 1826, a meet-
ing was held of the Preliminary Society, and it was resolved to
organize a Community of Equality. Such blindness to existing
conditions became increasingly characteristic of Owen’s behavior.
He was now plainly tripping along quite airily among the clouds.
Even his son, Robert Dale Owen, was surprised at his father’s
optimism :

I think mj father must have heen as well pleased with the condition of things
at New Harmony, on his arrival there, as I myself was. At all events some
three weeks afterwards, he disclosed to me his intention to propose to the
Harmonites that they should at once form themselves into a Community of

^ See the New Harmony Gazette, 1, 135 (January 18, 1826).

116

Robert Owen

Equality; based oil tbe principle of common property. This took me by surprise,
knowing, as I did, that wken the preliminary society had been established nine
months before, he had recommended that this novitiate should continue two
or three years, before adventuring the next and final step.^

Now followed tlie business of constitution making. A committee
of seven was chosen by ballot to undertake this work. Many sessions
were held, and at length the constitution with the declaration of
principles was brought forth. The declaration of principles was
lofty enough to suit the most idealistic :

Our Object, like that of aU sentient beings, is happiness.

Our Principles are

Equality of Rights, uninfluenced by sex or condition, in all adults :

Equality of Duties, modified by physical and mental conformation :

Cooperative Union, in the business and amusements of life:

Community of Property :

Freedom, of speech and action :

Sincerity, in all our proceedings :

Elndness, in all our actions :

Courtesy, in all our intercourse :

Order, in all our arrangements :

Preservation of Health :

Acquisition of Knowledge:

The Practice of Economy, or of producing and using the best of every thing
in the most beneficial manner :

Obedience to the Laws of the country in which we live

The principles as enunciated by the committee also reaiSrmed the
Owenite dogma on the formation of character and the importance
of education.

The official name of the community was to be “The New Harmony
Community of Equality,” In fact, equality was much emphasized
in the constitution. That instrument provided for an executive
council to carry into effect the laws and regulations passed by an
assembly composed of all members of the community above the
age of twenty-one years. The work of the community was to be
carried on by departments headed by superintendents selected by
the members of each department.

In order to become a member of the community, it was necessary
to receive th e approval of the majority of the members. No person
^ Robert Dale Owen, Threading My Way, pp. 253.

^ “Oonstitutiou of the New-Harmony Community of Equality/’ New Sar-
mony Gazette, 1 , 161--163 (February 15, 1826).

The Mad Utopians 117

conld be dismissed from the community except by two-tbirds vote
of the members of the assembly.

There was to be a community of property, but the real estate
was to be held in perpetual trust for the community. This meant,
of course, that no member on leaving could demand any portion
of it.

And so there was launched one of the most idealistic constitu-
tions that men have devised for their own governance. It was
brought forth in a frontier country — country seemingly preoc-
cupied with clearing land and raising crops. It was received with
enthusiasm by a people who at the same time enslaved negroes and
defended the practice by arguments from the Bible.

It was one thing to frame a constitution and secure its acceptance
by the community and quite another to make it work. This might
be expected in the affairs of men. But Owen, supposedly a shrewd
man of business, thought otherwise. The Community of Equality
had to be formed at once.

It is difficult to know just what happened in the few weeks fol-
lowing the inauguration of the constitution. The official paper, the
New Harmony Gazette, gives little idea of what the specific troubles
were that caused the executive council to ask Owen to assume full
control of the affairs of the colony for one year. This he did, and for
a time all went well. But in the meantime, some of those who had
belonged to the Preliminary Society drew off by themselves and
formed a new community, Macluria. This secession was prompted
not a little by Owen’s extreme views on religion ; but, nevertheless,
he went on with his program of emancipation. A little later still,
another community was formed under the name of Feiba Peveli.

A prominent visitor to New Harmony, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar-
Eisenach,"^^ noted the existence of these two communities other than
the parent colony at New Harmony :

No. 2, lies two miles distant from New Harmony, at the entrance of the forest,
which will be cleared to make the land fit for cultivation, and consists of nine
log houses, first tenanted about four weeks since, by about eighty persons.
They are mostly backwoodsmen with their families, who have separated them-
selves from the community. No. 1, in New Harmony, because %o religion is
acknowledged there, and these people wish to hold their prayer meetings undis-
turbed. The fields in the neighbourhood of this community were of course very

See below, pp. 120-122.

118 Robert Owen

new. The community No. 3, consisted of English country people, who formed
a new association, as the mixture, or perhaps the cosmopolitism of New Har-
mony did not snit them; they left the colony planted by Mr. Birkheck, at
English Prairie, about twenty miles hence, on the right bank of the "Wabash,
after the unfortunate death of that gentleman, and came here. This is a proof
that there are two evils that strike at the root of the young societies ; one is a
sectarian or intolerant spirit; the other, national pre 3 udiee. No. 3, is to be
built on a very pretty eminence, as yet there is only a frame building for three
families begun.^®

Not only did Owen’s liberal views on religion serve to upset the
calm of some people’s minds at New Harmony, but bis plan for tbe
education of the young struck at tbe sanctity of tbe home.

Sarab Pears in New Harmony wrote to ber aunt, Mrs Bake well,
on the subject of the new regulations that went into effect after the
formation of the permanent community :

I will now, if I can, give you some account of our new rules and regulations,
which have given almost general dissatisfaction. I will now endeavor to give
you a statement of facts, and ask you if you think it possible for any mother
to be satisfied. I for my part am pretty near out of my senses. It is impossible
to express how completely miserable I am, nor how I can sufficiently deprecate
my own folly in ever consenting to come so far at such an uncertainty.

In the first place, all our elder children, those whom we expected to be com-
fort and consolation and support in our old age, are to be taken away from us,
at an age, too, when they so peculiarly require the guardian care of their par-
ents; and are to be placed xn large boarding houses. The single males and
females above the age of fourteen are to live together in one house, over which
there is to be one married woman to superintend. I ought rather to have said
three houses, as there are three boarding houses ; but they are all to be con-
ducted on the same plan, and to be for the sole reception of single males and
females.

Instead of our own dear children each housekeeper is to receive two more
families, one of which will have a child under two years old. The rest will be
at the boarding school. These three families are each to live in community, and
take the cooking by turns. We have already got one family with us, but as the
people are leaving the Society very fast, I hope it will not be necessary to take
a third. If it is, however, I shall prefer going into one of their miserable log
cabins to being crowded so thick.

■o* o <>•

Mr. Owen has been remonstrated with about the impropriety of putting
young males and females into the same house, but he says that in six months
they will become so used to it that they will not mind it Can you, my dear Aunt,

Selections from Travels through North America, during the Year 18^5 and
18M . . . , II. JEJarly Travels in Indiana, selected and edited by Harlow Lindley,
pp. 418-437.

119

The Mad Utopians

conceive of anytlimg so absurd and cruel as breaking up and dividing families
in order to make them comf ortable? Comfort I Name not the word in Harmony^
or at least in the Community of Harmony. And Equality! — it would be a total
anomaly!^®

Mrs. Pears was a very nnliappy woman, and her hnsband came
to be a mneb disillusioned man. He wrote home :

I have before given you my opinion of the probability of the Preliminary
Society maintaining itself, and I think I once mentioned that I was afraid the
second year would produce results similar to the first. StiU I hoped that when
Mr. Owen returned, all would be so arranged as to ultimately succeed. I ad-
mired his abilities, his disinterestedness, and I had confidence in his knowledge
of business, and more than half believed in his knowledge of human nature ;
but '^hope deferred maketh the heart sick,^' and I cannot look forward to an-
other year of difSleulty, and I may say distress, with the same light heartedness
as I once viewed it. I am tired of the repetitions of : ^^These measures pursued,
in a very short time you will yourselves be astonished at the change for the
better which will be produced.” We pursue no measures. A ^^nine days wonder”
would be a wonder here.^^

New Harmony was indeed a madhouse in the months that fol-
lowed the formation of the permanent society and the dictatorship
of Owen. The utmost confusion prevailed in all departments. Little
cliques formed, accompanied by endless gossiping and whispering.
Owen gave lectures and prophesied that all would be well. He drew
pictures of the beautiful palaces that were to house them all in
the glorious days to come. On one occasion he led a little band of
the Utopians to a spot outside the town selected to be the site of the
buildings for the parallelogram. While the ladies of the community
prepared a lunch, the Harmonites laid about them mightily, felling
trees to clear the ground for their new home. Songs were sung, and
speeches were made. Owen painted a word picture of the New Jeru-
salem; but the palaces never materialized.

Spring came. The W'abash spread out over the low bottom lands ;
the earth grew warm and steamy; clouds of mosquitoes hovered
over the meadows. “Mr. Owen” tripped from meeting to meeting,
his face radiant with benevolence. Every day one or two families
left for Mt. Vernon by road or waited for a boat to take them back
to Pittsburgh, or Boston, or Philadelphia. Sarah Pears found that
March 10, 1826, in Pears Papers, pp. 70-74:.

Letter of Thomas Pears to Benjamin BakeweU, March 21, 1826, in Pears
Papers, pp. 75-79.

120

Boiert Owen

it was unnecessary to take more families into ker kome, and ker
daugkters were allowed to stay witk ker for tke very plain reason
tkat tke boarding sckools were not ready. In fact, notking appeared
to be up to specifications and time.

Tke social life, kowever, was not neglected. Tkere were balls, con-
certs, lectures, and even weddings. Owen, witk kis passion for regu-
lation and innovations, brougkt fortk a new rational costume for
men and women. Sarak Pears wrote :

The female dress is a pair of tiiidertrousers tied round the ankles over which
IS an exceedingly full slip reaching to the knees, though some have been so
extravagant as to make them rather longer, and also to have the sleeves long.
I do not know whether I can describe the men^s apparel but I will try. The
pantaloons are extremely full, also tied around the waist with a very broad
belt, which gives it the appearance of being all in one A fat person dressed in
this elegant costume I have heard very appropriately compared to a feather
bed tied m the middle. They are tied round the neck like the girls^ slips, and as
many wear them with no collars visible, it is rather difficult to distinguish the
gentlemen from the ladies. When I first saw the men with their bare necks it
immediately struck me how very suitably they were equipped for the execu-
tioner.^

In tkat wild year of Owen’s dictatorship when separate commu-
nities were forming and those who came on tke “Boat-Load of
Knowledge” were vainly striving to adjust themselves to tke com-
munity, tkere came Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenack.
Long before he reached tke banks of tke Wabash, he heard tkat
tke famous “Mr. Owen” was seeking to transform Americans from
a believing to an unbelieving people. Tke Duke declared in kis
Travels through North America tkat he had heard tke vigorous
denunciations of Owen, especially among public men. Some thought
kis mind deranged. In fact, tke Duke had heard so muck about
Owen tkat he determined to visit New Harmony. In due course he
arrived at tke town and put up at tke tavern He related in kis ac-
count of the visit :

After all this, I came with the utmost expectation to ISTew Harmony, curious
to become acquainted with a man of such extraordinary sentiments. In the
tavern, I accosted a man very plainly dressed, about fifty years of age, rather
of low stature, who entered into a conversation with me, concerning the situa-
tion of the place, and the disordered state in which I would find every thing,
where all was newly established &c. When I asked this man how long before

“ Letter to Mrs. Bakewell, April 8, 1826, in Fears Papers j pp. 80-84.

121

The Mad Utopians

Mr. Owen would be there, he annoTineed himself, to my no small surprize, as
Mr. Owen, was glad at my visit and offered himself to show every thing, and
explain to me whatever remained without explanation.^®

Owen took the Duke around and showed him the Eappite
churches, the frame one then being used as carpenter shops where
boys were taught the mechanical arts. He also took him over to
meet Maclure, who was living in Rapp’s house. Bernhard drew a
contrast between the ostentatious way in which Father Rapp had
lived and the plain quarters occupied by Owen at the Tavern.

One evening Bernhard had a chance to see the social side of New
Harmony. He noticed that the more refined and artistic young
ladies elevated their noses in the presence of some of the country
boys.

In the evening, I paid visits to some ladies, and witnessed philosophy and
the love of equality put to the severest trial with one of them. She is named
Virginia, from Philadelphia; is very young and pretty, was delicately brought
up, and appears to have taken refuge here on account of an unhappy attach-
ment. While she was singing and playing very weU on the piano forte, she was
told that the milking of the cows was her duty, and that they were waiting
unmilked. Almost in tears she betook herself to this servile employment, depre-
cating the new social system, and its so much prized equality.

After the cows were milked, m doing which the poor girl was trod on by one,
and daubed by another, I joined an aquatic party with the young ladies and
some young philosophers, in a very good boat on the inundated meadows of
the Wabash. The evening was beautiful moonlight, and the air very mild; the
beautiful Miss Virginia forgot her stable sulGferings, and regaled us with her
sweet voice. Somewhat later we collected together in the house No. 2, appointed
for a school-house, where all the young ladies and gentlemen of quality assem-
bled. In spite of the equality so much recommended, this class of persons will
not mix with the common sort, and I believe that all the well brought up mem-
bers are disgusted, and wiU soon abandon the society. We amused ourselves
exceedingly during the whole remainder of the evenmg, dancing cotillions,
reels and waltzes, and with such animation as rendered it quite lively. New
figures had been introduced among the cotillions, among which is one called
the new social system. Several of the ladies made objections to dancmg on Sun-
day; we thought however, that in this sanctuary of philosophy, such prejudices
should be utterly discarded, and our arguments, as well as the inclination of
the ladies, gained the victory

Tbe Duke seemed inclined to ridicule tbe principle of equality
that bad been injected into tbe colony by Owen. But it must be

Selections from Travels through North America j during the Year 18B5 and
1826 . . . , II. Indiana as Seen by Barly Travelers, selected and edited by Har-
low Lindley, pp. 418-437.

^Ibid.

122

Itobert Owen

remembered that the Duke’s adherence to this principle was never
very enthusiastic. It is not at aU unlikely that the ladies with whom
the Duke passed his time were trying to impress him with their
social position and hence complained about the boors they were
compelled to meet.

The Duke had many ^‘conversations” with Owen, all pertaining
to the “New Social System.” When the Duke expressed doubts as
to the practicability of making over Europe and the United States,
Owen showed himself to be so “unalterably convinced” that the
Duke was “grieved.” He was particularly grieved because he had
found in talking to the Harmonites that they were deceived in their
expectations “and expressed their opinion that Mr. Owen had com-
menced on too grand a scale, and had admitted too many members,
without the requisite selection 1”^

And so no doubt the Duke thought Owen a little mad, but Bern-
hard had not caught the vision of the New Jerusalem that loomed
up so highly before Owen. Indeed, the onetime cotton spinner, so
intent upon the quality of his yarn, had now become a dreamer
of one dream ; henceforth mere arguments of mere people touched
him only as flitting shadows before the glorious light of the per-
fect day.

Owen’s ideas on marriage were the subject of much discussion
in America. He had advocated unions based upon love and purely
secular in character. He argued that it was altogether wrong and
false to promise always to love an individual. Circumstances — ^the
all-powerful and determining circumstances — ^might make it im-
possible for one to continue to love his wife; therefore, it was
absurd to compel him to live with her and pretend he did. Owen
hoped to carry out at New Harmony his ideas on marriage ; there-
fore, when two couples presented themselves for marriage, Owen,
in the presence of witnesses, merely asked them if they were will-
ing to take each other as man and wife. When they replied that
they were, he asked them to declare that any further ceremony was
unnecessary. This they did but at the same time were married in
the regular way by a Methodist minister.^ At that time, they be-
lieved this to be legally necessary but found later that the law did
not require it.

^lUd,

See the letter of Sarah Pears to Mrs. Bahewell, April 8, 1826, in :Pears
Papers, pp. 80-84.

The Mad Utopians 123

In a letter home, Mrs. Pears gave an account of these marriages :

There were two weddings last Sunday in the Hall. The parties with their
bridesmaids and groomsmen were all dressed in the new costume, which is of
black and white striped cotton, and as they have as yet but one apiece, and as
one of the brides had been working in the boarding school kitchen all the pre-
ceding week, and had done a great deal of scrubbing in hers, it could not be
very nice. She, poor girl, had first dressed herself very nicely in bridal white,
but was persuaded by Mr. Owen and the bridegroom to lay aside these trap-
pings of the old world, and to draw from its depository amongst the dirty
clothes this elegant suit in which she was married. But I have been told that
the change cost her many tears.-®

These couples had observed the rules laid down for community
marriage by Owen. They had signified to the community their in-
tention to marry three months before their union. And of course
if they had followed literally the rules laid down by Owen, they
would have merely appeared before the community at the end of
the three months and signified their intention to live together. In
case they should find their marriage intolerable, divorce could be
made very simple. If they wished to separate, they would only
have to appear before the community once more and declare their
intention to part. If they were of the same mind after three months,
they were free to enter into another marriage.

And so they lived on, singing, dancing, marrying and giving in
marriage, talking and philosophizing, while the fields remained
untilled, the looms unmanned, and the fences unrepaired.

Owen the serene one was not without his ruffled moments. Mac-
lure gave him much trouble. It was he who was supposed to launch
the schools ; but somehow they did not materialize according to
the splendid dreams that had been Maclure’s and Owen’s.

Maclure’s delays in getting the school in operation swelled Owen’s
impatience to the point where he took a hand himself and proceeded
to organize his own school under the direction of a Mr. Dorsey.
This ruffled Maclure, who was not in very good health anyway.
And when Owen asked Maclure to pay two bonds of $20,000 each,
held by Bapp, Maclure did so but at the same time called upon his
utopian partner for a deed to a portion of the New Harmony estate
so that he could carry on independently of Owen. Owen countered
by drawing bills for the amount he claimed that Maclure owed him
Maclure posted up notices at New Harmony that he would not be

124

Robert Owen

responsible for Owen’s debts. Owen answered these with his own
notice declaring that he was still Maclnre’s partner and that he
wonld honor debts incurred by Maelnre.

And then, finally, the two angry Utopians consented to arbitrate
their differences, with the result that Maclure received his deed to
the land and Owen $5,000. Maclure paid Eapp the forty thousand,
but he and Owen did not live happily together ever after. The
partnership came to an end, while the enemies of the ^^Social Sys-
tem” took delight in pestering Owen with questions relating to his
part in the unsavory mess. The story of the quarrel was an unctions
morsel in the mouths of those unfriendly to the new order. Owen
was obliged to spend many an hour explaining to audiences that
Maclure was an old man who often became irritable and irrational.

Then too, Owen had trouble with a young man by the name of
Paul Brown, who possessed a perverse nature. He posted up notices
of meetings to discuss the ‘‘Social System,” while Owen, feeling,
perhaps, that the “Social System” needed more practice and less
discussion, tore them down. Brown took his revenge by writing
against Owen. He made much of the latter’s desire to retain his
interest in the property at New Harmony. Apparently Owen had
said something about Brown’s poverty — ^if we are to believe Brown :

He spoke of mj poverty; saying, ^‘because you are poor, you want those that
have wealth, to make common property.” He mentioned an instance of my
necessity of borrowing, and said, ^'if you cannot provide support for yourself,
how could you contrive means for the maintenance of eight or ten persons'?”
(or words to that effect;) alluding, no doubt, to some design he suspected or
imagined I had, to attempt the founding of a community, which might draw
some people from under Tiis hammer and tongs. So then, here, this Mr. Bobert
Owen, who had publicly denounced individual property as one of the heads of
that hydra which had hatched all the crimes and miseries of society, makes it
the criterion of a man’s worth, and depreciates one’s character in proportion
to the lack of it. This is not the only instance in which this man has exemplified
a contempt of poverty, and deference for the indications of wealth and success.-^

Paul Brown was not the only one who malie Owen’s stay at New
Harmony a difficult one. A certain William Taylor drifted into
New Harmony one day; and, professing to be an ardent disciple
of the new system, he prevailed upon Owen to sell him 1,500 acres
of land to establish a community. The contract entered into between
Owen and Taylor provided that the latter should have the land

^ Twelve Months in New Harmony, p. 58.

125

The Mad Utopians

for a certain sum of money “with all thereon.” The story runs that
Taylor, on the night before he was to come into possession, moved
all the tools, livestock, and other property he could find onto the
land. To further embarrass Owen, he set up a whisky distillery.

All these troubles in no wise shook Owen’s optimism. He con-
tinued to voice unbounded faith in the colony’s ultimate success.

On the Fourth of July in 1826, Owen stood up in the Rappite
Church and made his famous Declaration of Mental Independence.
A small band of devoted ones together with a more numerous crowd
of those who were losing faith listened to “Old Bob” explain that
Washington, Franklin, and Patrick Henry had merely glimpsed
the light of mental freedom. These “worthies,” Owen declared,
had been so surrounded by old world prejudices as to make it im-
possible for them to penetrate the thick mental darkness about
them. But now, Owen proclaimed the new freedom.

... I now Declare, to you and to the world, [he announced,] that MaTi, up to thu
hour, has heen, in all parts of the earth, a slave to a Trinity of the most mon-
strous evils that could he combined to inflict mental and physical evil upon his
whole race,

I refer to Private, or Individual Property — Absurd and Irrational Systems
of Eeligion — and Marriage, founded on individual property combined with
some one of these irrational systems of rehgion.^

Once more, even as he had done in his City of London Tavern
speech, Owen denounced the old order. The results were, as before,
unfortunate. He was branded an infidel and an atheist — ^hard
names for any man to be given at that time. But he had announced
the new day. Henceforth time was to be reckoned from July 4,
1826 — ^the begmning of mental independence. The New Harmony
Gazette dated its issues as the “First Year of Mental Independ-
ence,” etc. Like the French Eevolutionists, Owen was seeking to
cut loose from the past ; but, also like them, he soon found the past
clings to men with amazing tenacity.

While the Harmonites vainly sought to realize Owen’s dreams,
they at the same time did more than grope in darkness. The pas-
sengers on the “Boat-Load of Knowledge” had long since landed
and set up their schools. And it is in this activity that the “Fair
Side of New Harmony” is revealed.

® “Oration Contaming a Declaration, of Mental Independence . . . ,” New
Sarmony Gazette, I, 329-331 (July 12, 1826).

CHAPTBE XII

THE FAIR SIDE OE NEW HARMONY

I T WAS INDEED a glorious day for these Utopians when Robert
Owen of New Lanark arrived from England, and when the
^'Boat-Load of Knowledge” warped on to the Indiana shore it
was a day never to be forgotten. Straightway the talent so long ex-
pected disembarked and was enthusiastically greeted by the hope-
ful Harmonites. They were not to be altogether disappointed, for
the schools so long heralded were started and gave fair promise.

Far and wide the news had been spread that Robert Owen, sup-
ported by William Maclure, was to offer unique educational op-
portunities to the children of the community and the neighboring
towns. Many people had come to New Harmony for no other pur-
pose than to give their children a chance to be taught by famous
teachers trained in the methods of Pestalozzi and Owen.

The dominant note in the educational program was that the sub-
jects taught should be useful and practical. Both Owen and Mac-
lure were opposed to the old system with its emphasis upon Latin
and Greek. They were also in opposition to the use of the whip and
other coercive methods practiced by the teachers of their day.
Perhaps their views on what was to be done for the children of
New Harmony can best be summarized by the following statement
taken from the New Harmony Gazette: A child was to be given
Good dispositions and habits j

As sound a constitution as air, exercise and temperance can bestow;

A knowledge of the objects of nature around him, beginning with the most
simple and proceeding as his faculties expand;

A knowledge of the outline of natural history and geography;

A knowledge of himself, and of human nature to render him charitable, kind
and benevolent to all his fellow-creatures, and to form him into a rational
being;

A facility in reading, writing, aceoTints and grammar;

Daily exercises in dancing, gymnastics, music and drawing;

A knowledge of mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, astronomy, anatomy
and general history ;

A knowledge of domestic economy, political economy (in its true signifi-
cance) and government ;

A knowledge of the theory and practice of agriculture; and lastly, a prac-
tical knowledge of some one or more useful manufacture, trade or other oceu-

[ 126 ]

The Fair Side of New Harmony 127

pation, that his employment may he varied for the improvement of his mental
and physical powers.^

TMs was certainly an ambitious undertaking for any group of
educators, even tkose bent on building a new civilization. But
Owen, with that supreme naivete so ebaracteristie of him, saw
nothing in the way of its aceomplisliment. However, in the months
that were to follow, he was to discover that the human nature of
the teachers themselves was to make the task a very difficult one.

In the first place, Maclure, the man picked to father the schools,
was in poor health and stayed at New Harmony only a short time.
He left Say behind to act as his representative ,* but he too became
ill, and so it came about that Madame Pretageot took charge of
Maclure’s business. She proved a very capable manager, watching
over his interests with scrupulous care. After the dissolution of
the community, she continued to conduct a school at New Harmony
supported by Maclure.

Joseph Neef, Maclure’s Pestalozzian teacher, was an intractable
individual who on occasions swore at his pupils and stormed at
Owen. Mrs. Chase, who tried her hand at teaching music, drawing,
and painting, was far too attractive for the peace of mind of the
Owen brothers. But the most temperamental of all in the ^Hoat-
Load of Knowledge” was ‘William Phiquepal d’Arusmont, who
captured the heart of Fanny Wright and no doubt contributed to
drive that brilliant lady into a public career for solace from an
unhappy marriage.

When the schools actually got under way, it appears that Mad-
ame Neef, the capable wife of Joseph Neef, was conducting the
infant school with about one hundred pupils. She, assisted by
Madame Pretageot, was following the methods so successfully used
by Owen at New Lanark.

Joseph Neef, with the aid of his four daughters and one son,
took charge of the boys and girls between the ages of five and twelve
years. In the best days of the school there were about two hundred
pupils enrolled. The children were taught according to the methods
of Pestalozzi and were also given instruction in industrial subjects.
It was the industrial part of their training that Maclure empha-
sized, and in this respect he stands out as a pioneer in education.

^ Eobert Owen, ^^The Social System,’^ Few Harmony Gazertte, I, 169—170
(February 28, 1827).

128

Bolert Owen

He insisted that every child of the productive classes should be
taught a trade and that his labor if properly directed should more
than pay for the cost of educating him."*

True to the principles of Owen, the children in Neef's school
were regarded as belonging to the community and were not allowed
to return to their parents at the end of the day. The little ones slept
in bunks above the workshops. Sarah Cox ThraU, who died many
years ago in New Harmony, told of her experiences as a little girl
in this Pestalozzian school. She related how the girls were sent out
early in the morning to milk the cows and also how the milk with
mush cooked in large kettles formed their breakfast. It was cer-
tainly good, wholesome food for young growing children, but there
seemed to be elements lacking in their diet. “We had bread but
once a week,” she declared, “ — on Saturdays. I thought if I ever
got out, I would kill myself eating sugar and cake.”®

Sarah Thrall further related how she and the other children
marched in a body to the schoolroom in Community House No. 2,
where they were given lessons in arithmetic and other subjects, all
interspersed with much singing. She had a vivid recollection of
the blackboard that extended along one side of the room and the
wires with balls on them used for counting. No doubt these wires
and balls were very much the same as we see today in Chinese
laundries. Every minute of the day was occupied ; and, after mush
and milk were served again, the children went to their bunks.

We went to bed at sundown in little bunks suspended in rows by cords from
tbe celling. Sometimes one of the children at the end of the row would swing
back her cradle, and, when it collided in the return bound with the next bunk,
it set the whole row bumping together. This was a favorite diversion, and caused
the teachers much distress. At regular intervals we used to be marched to the
community apothecary shop, where a dose that tasted like sulphur was im-
partially dealt out to each pupil, just as in Squeers’ Dotheboys school. Children
regularly in the boarding-school were not allowed to see their parents, except
at rare intervals. I saw my father and mother twice in two years. We had a
little song we used to sing:

ISTumber 2 pigs locked up in a pen,

When they get out, it^s now and then;

When they get out, they sneak about,

For fear old Neef will find them out.*

* See George B. Lockwood, The New Harmony Movement, n. 242.
3m(2.,p.246.

The Fair Side of New Harmony 129

There was one other school at New Harmony called the School
for Adults, where pupils over twelve years of age were trained in
the nsefnl arts. Lectures were often given by Troost, Lesueur,
Thomas Say, and Phiquepal d^Arusmont.

The separation of children from their parents was a source of
much grief to some of the parents. Mrs. Pears was sorely troubled
when she heard that her daughters were to be taken from her :

My mind is absolutely in sueb a state that I am almost incapable of doing
anything, and next week expect my daughters will be taken from me. If I am
sick I cannot have my own daughters to nurse me, but must be taken to the
hospital to be taken care of by strangers. I know not really how I can write
such things and keep my senses.®

How often Owen must have sighed when confronted with the
anxious and solicitous parents. Like Plato, he must have longed
to send them out into the country so that he might mold the chil-
dren into his own pattern. The parents proved so irrational they
could not solve their own problems of government and economic
support, and the schools went down with the community.

You also know, that the chief difficulty at this time arose from the differ-
ence of opinion among the Professors and Teachers brought here by Mr.
Maclure, relative to the education of the children, and to the consequent delay
in putting any one of their systems into practice.®

Owen then went on to say that each of the teachers drew his
pupils apart from the others and undertook the entire instruction
of them without giving the pupils an opportunity to come in con-
tact with other pupils and instructors. This course, Owen argued,
tended to promote separatist tendencies and thus defeated his end
of educating all as one family in good social habits.

It was certainly ironical that Owen should have started to social-
ize a group of people with a staff of teachers so unsocially minded
as the ones he had brought to New Harmony. It would have been
natural to expect that Owen would have first taken the pains to
train his staff of teachers in his methods before the work of instruc-
tion in the schools began. He certainly thought it necessary to do
so at New Lanark, but it became increasingly obvious that Owen

® Letter of Sarah Pears to Mrs, Bakewell, March 10, 1826, in Tears Fapdrs,
pp. 70-74.

® Robert Owen, ‘^Address Delivered by Robert Owen, on Sunday, the 6th of
May, 1827, in the New-Harmony Hall, and to the Members of the Neighboring
Communities,” New Harmony Gazette, II, 254-255 (May 9, 1827).

130

Robert Owen

was passing from a man of business and sound administrative
judgment to a dreamer who found details too trivial for bis at-
tention.

Owen’s criticism of the teaching and instructors at New Har-
mony seems justified by the reports made by Madame Fretageot
to Maclure. In her letters written to him during the last part of
1826, she told of the quarrels and misunderstandings among the
teaching staff. She explained how Neef ’s school had split up, each
teacher taking his pupils to himself. She had collected her little
charges and marched them off to Maclure’s house. Phiquepal, in a
great fury, had taken his three pupils to the Stepple House.''

While Owen saw in the breakdown of education at New Harmony
a cause of the collapse of the great adventure, others looked else-
where for causes. Some blamed Owen himself for the debacle;
others dilated on the confusion wrought by the discordant spirits
who trooped mto the community; still others insisted that it failed
for the same reason that all collective schemes must fail, because
the incentives for individual effort were lacking.

Eobert Dale Owen, who watched the experiment with critical
eyes, declared his father made a great mistake in trying out his
ideas in America.

The average wages of farm labor here [he wrote] amount to a dollar
and a quarter a day, or seven dollars and a half a week; and even if we put
wheat at a dollar and eighty-five cents a bushel, which is its price only in
our seaboard cities and when it is ready for shipment, a week^s labor in
husbandry will purchase four bushels of wheat, instead of a tushel and a
quarter as in England. The need of cooperation or some other protection for
labor may be said to be threefold greater than here.

My father made another and stiU greater mistake. A believer in the force of
circumstances and of the instinct of self-interest to reform all men, however
ignorant or vicious, he admitted into his village all comers, without recom-
mendatory introduction or any examination whatever. This error was the
more fatal, because it is in the nature of any novel experiment, or any putting
forth of new views which may tend to revolutionize the opinions or habits of
society, to attract to itself (as the Eeformation did, three hundred years ago,
and as Spiritualism does today) waifs and strays from surrounding society;
men and women of crude, ill considered, extravagant notions; nay, worse,
vagrants who regard the latest heresy but as a stalking-horse for pecuniary
gain, or a convenient cloak for immoral demeanor ®

See Madame Marie Buclos Fretageot Letters, extracts made by Mrs. Nora
Fretageot, MSS.

® Threading My Way, p, 259.

131

The Fair Side of New Rarmoiiy

Madame Fretageot watched the Utopians leave one by one, until
only a few remained at New Harmony. Fanny Wright and her
sister came and went. Fanny left to launch out on her experiment
at Nashoba for the redemption of Negroes. Mrs. Chase stayed on
to teach and flirt while her husband experimented with gases. But
at length “he closed his door to her,^’ and for a time she roamed
around the community. Legend has it that she often walked along-
side of Eobert Dale Owen and read verses to him as he plowed
the rich soil of New Harmony.

Madame Fretageot struggled along for a few months with the
support of Maelure ,* then she appears to have given up the school.
Owen, before his debate with Campbell,® visited New Harmony for
a very short time. This was in March, 1829, but by this time all
semblance of the order he had so vainly sought to establish was
gone. The communities"® had in fact dissolved after his farewell
address in May, 1827.

During the very brief lifetime of New Harmony, it had become
the rendezvous for some of the outstanding men and women of
America. Especially did the community attract philosophers and
men of science. Besides those that landed from the “Boat-Load of
Knowledge,” there came such people as Josiah Warren and, of
course, Frances Wright. Warren fell under Owen^s spell when the
latter visited Cincinnati before the community at New Harmony
had been launched. He had tried his hand at leading orchestras
and making inventions, but when he listened to Owen explain his
“New Social System,” he was determined to join the Utopians. Two
years at New Harmony was long enough to convince this idealistic
man that communism was not the way out of the social-economic
dilemma. But from Owen he gained the idea that labor produced
all wealth and should enjoy the goods produced. Owen had already
talked about labor notes as the ideal form of currency; therefore
Warren left New Harmony bent on opening up a store where goods
could be exchanged on the basis of labor spent in producing and
selling them. The result was the famous “Time Store” opened up
in Cincinnati where the so-called labor notes were brought into use.
For a short while this venture flourished ; but Warren discovered
other dreams, and the store passed on into history.

® See below, chap. XY.

There seems to have been at least ten communities established on the New
Harmony estate by 1827.

132

Bolert Owen

Frances WrigM, made of the stuff of reformers, found in Owen
a man after her own heart. But she was not content to be a mere
follower and teacher in Owen’s ''New Society.” She too brought
forth her own plans of salvation : first, to redeem the black man
from slavery at Nashoba, and then, later on, to emancipate women
from their political and economic bondage to men. With an ardor
that was inexplicable to Americans of her day, this brilliant and
gifted woman stood up before astonished audiences and preached
equal rights for women. On marriage she had much to say. Some
declared that free love was her goal and hissed out a warning
against harkening to this daughter of Satan. But she talked on
before huge audiences of men and women who shuddered in de-
lightful wickedness as she drew word pictures of a new paradise
of freedom.

Fanny Wright and Eobert Dale Owen, who became her intel-
lectual partner, edited the New Harmony Gazette, which was later
called the Free Enquirer and published in New York. Together
they championed the cause of a political party for labor — ^the
Working Men’s Party of New York. They fought for free popular
education and never ceased denouncing the narrow religious big-
otry so characteristic of their time.

Out of New Harmony, therefore, blew a strong wind of freedom,
bracing and invigorating to liberals who now held up their heads
and dared to speak out. There were many in America during this
period who longed to voice their liberal sentiments on religion, but
the puritan pressure was so strong that social and political death
awaited those who transgressed. While Eobert Dale Owen was
editor of the Enquirer, Nicholas Trist, who had married the grand-
daughter of Thomas Jefferson, wrote an article that Eobert Dale
printed in the Enquirer, It seems that Trist’s initials appeared at
the end of the article. This brought from him a protesting letter.
He pointed out that while he was sympathetic with Owen’s ideas,
he did not wish to have that fact made public. Trist was a clerk in
the State Department at the time and no doubt was hoping for
higher political office.

George Flower, who, with Morris Birkbeck, founded the English
settlement in Edwards County, Illinois, wrote of Owen’s influence
in America. He declared that long after Owen had departed from
New Harmony his influence was manifest in the daily lives of the

The Fair Side of New Harmony 133

people. He gave one particular instance of tMs influence that has
the ring of authenticity :

A father of a family, a religious man, opposed to most of Mr. Owen’s
opinions, said to me: ^Well, in one tMng I think he is right — ^in treatment
of children — and I shall leave oj0P whipping.”^

Though New Harmony was a failure as a community, and its
failure was blown to the four winds in America, nevertheless
Owen’s faith in the community idea was so great as to inspire
many to go on building other communities. In fact, Owen started
thousands on the road to Utopia. In the twenty years following
the founding of New Harmony, scheme after scheme was launched
to create the Kingdom of Heaven in America. Besides the com-
munities that were strictly Owenite in form,'^ there were many
like Brook Farm and the North American Phalanx that followed
the principles of Fourier.

Owen was, indeed, more than an episode in America. He was
a prophet of protest, summoning brave souls to follow him away
from narrow provincialism into a land of freedom. And thou-
sands did follow him seeking to escape from the stern realities of
frontier life.

^ George Flower, Kisidry of the JEnglish Settlement in Edwards County,
Illinois, p. 284.

^ John Humphrey Koyes in his Sistory of American Socialism, 17, gives
the f ollowing list of Owenite communities ; Blue Spring Community, Indiana j
Co-operative Society, Pennsylvania; Coxsakie Community, New York; For-
restville Community, Indiana; Franklm Community, Indiana; Haverstraw
Community, New York; Kendal Community, Ohio; Macluria, Indiana;
Nashoba, Tennessee; and Yellow Spring Community, Ohio.

CHAPTER XIII

BAITING THE CLEEGY

After oweist had delivered his farewell address to the few

Z-A inhabitants who remained at New Harmony, he journeyed
JL JL back to the Bast, to Philadelphia, where he gave a lecture
explaining the progress that was being made in community life
on the New Harmony estate. He also explained his side of the
controversy with Maclure.

The newspapers reported crowded audiences eager to hear ^‘Mr.
Owen, the atheist.” And he, not one whit cast down by the failure
of New Harmony, continued to expound his gospel of the “New
System.” After many meetings, Owen took ship for England,
where he arrived July 24, 1827.

Once back in his home land, Owen made public an address
directed to the “Agriculturists, Mechanics, and Manufacturers,
both Masters and Operatives, of Great Britain and Ireland.”
Again Owen called attention to the great paradox — ^poverty amidst
vastly increased production. Machinery, he declared, was com-
peting with labor and forcing the price of labor ever lower.

The workers under this system were destined to sink into hope-
less poverty, and even slavery, with a few families possessing all
the wealth. At this point, Owen was well ahead of Marx in his
prediction of increasing misery as the lot of the working classes.

But his cure was far different from Marxes at this stage of his
thought. Owen advocated labor exchanges where producers could
bring their goods and exchange them for notes based upon the
“prime costs” of the materials used plus the labor hours spent in
their creation."^

Owen seems to have moved away from the community idea
based upon common property. Perhaps the failure at New Har-
mony had dampened his enthusiasm for a period. But, of course,
he never admitted it. One Sunday morning after his return to
England, a breakfast was given by the London Co-operative So-
ciety. “There were present several elegant distinguished females.”
After Owen had read to them his address to the “Manufacturers

^See the New Sarmony Gazette, III, 73-74 (December 12, 1827). Also in
“Report to the County of Lanark . . , 1820,” L%fe, by Robert Owen, Ia, 263-310
(Appendix S).

[ 134 ]

135

Baiting the Clergy

and Mechanics/^ lie told his audience that the ten comnninities
at New Harmony were in a thriving condition and success was
in prospect. The stories of their failure, he declared, were circu-
lated by his enemies in the American newspapers and were false

Before Owen left for America again, he visited the Orbiston
Community near Glasgow, an enterprise conducted by Abram
Combe, one of Owen's disciples Indeed, cooperation and commu-
nity building were very much in the air at this time. But Owen's
thoughts were on America, and so he sailed with three of his sons
for New Orleans on the ship “Consbrook," November 16, 1827.

By January he had reached New Orleans, where he began a
series of lectures in the American Theater. At this stage of his
career the clergy and religion loomed up as the great obstacles to
human progress; therefore his lectures were filled with attacks
upon the priesthood. He had much to say about his “System” as
well, but the clergy received most of his attention. Perhaps he
was smarting under the blows he had received at their hands since
he had embarked on the New Harmony adventure.

The New Orleans newspapers did not ignore him. In fact, they
gave him generous publicity. The Louisiana Courier of January
23, 1828, carried this item on his lectures :

Whatever may he thought of this gentleman and his plans, we believe all
adnut his honesty of purpose, his disinterestedness, the importance of the
object which he advocates, his perseverence in pressing it, and the ability
and boldness with which he opposes popular prejudices, [as] he calls them,
of every description. Feeling, as he appears to do, full conviction in the
truth of the principles which he promulgates, he courts objections from his
audience and he is ready to give any explanation required.

The New Orleans Courier called attention to tbe great press of
people to listen to Owen in tbe Government House, for it appears
that tbe legislature offered Owen its building for bis lectures. So
great was tbe interest that “several of our most respectable citi-
zens [were] obliged to return. . .

Tbe same journal commented tbe next day on tbe

complete triumph of right conduct over popular prejudice. When Mr. Owen
arrived, a few days ago, from Liverpool, the feelings of the public in opposi-
tion to him and his plans were of a very strong character. He met them fairly
and openly, yet with his usual quiet dignity of manner, evidently arising

^ New Orleans Courier, January 28, 1828.

136

Bohert Owen

from Ms eonviction in tlie trutli of Ms Yiews/^ yet opposed as these

views are both in principle and practice to the strongest prejudices which
we have imbibed from infancy, he fairly conquered these prejudices by a
simple statement of facts, which all who reflect in every country admit, and
by the close and accurate deductions which he drew from a comparison of
all these facts. ... We observed very few females among Mr. Owen^s audiences.
Were we to speak the truth we should say that a mistaken influence was
exerted to keep them away from a false shame of delicacy, as it was known
Mr. Owen would touch upon matrimony and the sexual intercourse. However,
for any thing we heard, these lectures were most strictly moral, and any
lady who attends balls and plays, or reads novels, would stand less chance
of being corrupted at these lectures than when engaged in either of the other
modes of amusement.

After Owen had laid bare the fallacies taught by the clergy, he
finally issued a challenge to them in writing :

Gentlemen — 1 have now finished a course of lectures in tMs city, the princi-
ples of which are in direct opposition to those wMch you have been taught
it your duty to preach. It is of immense importance to the world that truth
upon these momentous subjects should be now established upon a certain and
sure foundation. You and I, and aU our fellowmen are deeply interested that
there should be no further delay. With this view, without one hostile or un-
pleasant feeling on my part, I propose a friendly public discussion, the most
open that the city of Hew-Orleans will afford, or if you prefer it, a more
private meeting, when half a dozen friends of each party shall be present,
in addition to half a dozen gentlemen whom you may associate with you
in the discussion. The time and place of meeting to be of your appointment.

I propose to prove, as I have already attempted to do in my lectures, that
all the religions of the world have been founded on the ignorance of man-
kind ; that they are directly opposed to the never-changing laws of our nature j
that they have been and are the real source of vice, disunion and misery of
every description; that they are now the only real bar to the formation of
a society of virtue, of intelligence, of charity in its most extended sense,
and of sincerity and kindness among the whole human family ; and that they
can be no longer maintained except through the ignorance of the mass of
the people, and the tyranny of the few over that mass.

With feelings of perfect good will to you, which extend also in perfect sin-
cerity to all mankind, I subscribe myself your friend in a just cause.

Bobt. Owen.®

Then Owen tacked the following on the end of this gentle
challenge :

P.S. If tMs proposal should be declined, I shall conclude, as I have long
most conscientiously been compelled to do, that the principles wMeh I advocate
are unanswerable truths.^

^ New Earmony Gazette, III, 169 (March 28, 1828).

137

Baiting the Clergy

Owen’s logic, or lack of it, in Ms conclusion was the subject of
criticism in the Louisiana Advertiser of January 29. This journal
stated the opinion that Owen’s “deduction” was “neither chari-
table nor logical.” And the next day the same newspaper had this
remark to make :

The gaseonading challenge of Mr. Owen, clothed in a tattered robe of
modesty, meets with notice only to prevent its effect on the weak and ignorant.
He has the presumption and vanity to imagine that the absurdities which
he propounds as a system, are even recommended by the charm of novelty.
Perhaps it is only the narrowness of his education which prevents him from
perceivmg that the same irrational schemes were urged by numbers, with
all the energy of conviction, in the time of the commonwealth of England —
or will he explain the difference, if any exists, between his notions and those
of Godwin, which have been before us for half a century? Is it by the use
of a few compound, long syllable. Greek-derived terms, that he can mislead
the public? Boldness and presumption will go a great way, and by telling
mankind that they are fools, they may possibly bebeve it.

And finally the editor flung at Owen :

Mr. Owen is too full of his own system to be able to weigh the merits of
any opposing argumentation, and thinks himself too much a Jack-the-Giant-
killer not to come off with victory in his own imagination. He may be assured
that such conclusions will be drawn by no one but himself.

Owen waited, but no one came out of tbe “Cotton Kingdom” to
defend tbe cause of revealed religion. It was left for a Baptist
preacher, Alexander Campbell of Betbany, Virginia, to take up
tbe challenge.

But meantime, Owen was not too wrapped up in bis own ideas
to be unable to spot an institution in New Orleans that delighted
bis heart. In that city so much under French influence, young
men of good family formed alliances with ladies of color, tbe
famed quadroons, whose beauty and grace were known through-
out the South. These quadroons were in many cases nearly white,
being descendants of unions such as Owen witnessed. It was the
practice to send the daughters born of these irregular unions to
Paris for education, after wMch they returned to America to
follow in their mothers’ footsteps.

Owen’s liberalism never went far enough to include the black
race in his new society. Wherever he came in contact with slavery
it never aroused his indignation, nor did he see in this institution
of concubinage anytMng incongruous with Ms general humani-

138

Robert Owen

tarian outlook. Therefore, he rushed as usual into an enthusiastic
endorsement of New Orleans morality .

Accustomed, as I have been, to visit many large cities, and observe the
state o£ society in them, I could not avoid remarking an extraordinary ab-
sence of all appearance of female indelicacy, so offensive in all other large
cities, in Europe and America. I was led to enquire the cause which produced
this improvement in your city; for I had been prepared to expect the most
licentious manners of every description. It was satisfactorily explained to me
when I was informed of the singular character and position of the female
quatroons [quadroons], — supplying, with the least degradation of manners,
mind and feelings, those natural wants which are supplied in other large
cities through a medium so immoral and degrading as to pollute whatever
comes within its atmosphere.

The female quatroon [quadroon] is taught, from infancy, to consider it
an elevation of character to be connected with a white male ; her own mind,
therefore, remains uncontaminated with those low vices which always succeed
prostitution in other countries; but the female quatroon [quadroon] continues
chaste in her own thoughts and feelings. She is, therefore, unknown to her-
self, the preserver of the morals of our young men, — and, by this accidental
arrangement, which, I believe, exists only in your city, more degradation of
character and crime is prevented than superficial observers know how to
estimate.®

Owen wrote this and more on the steamboat “George Washing-
ton,” anchored in the Mississippi. It was a bold statement to put
into print, even in New Orleans, but in New England it was re-
garded as branding him as a very dangerous man with immoral
and infidel ideas.

While Owen was in New Orleans, he received a letter from a
southern slave holder by the name of Robert Secot, who declared
his intention of freeing twenty young slaves and wanted Owen to
take charge of them. He offered $5,000 to be used for settling them
upon land and otherwise providing for them. He stipulated, how-
ever, that he did not want the males to have promiscuous inter-
course with white women ; intercourse with females of their own
color should be adhered to.

No evidence exists that Owen paid any attention to this offer,
but the very nature of it clearly shows that Owen^s lectures con-
stantly brought him into contact with those who had broken away
from the conventional herd and sought the adventure of wander-

® Robert Owen, “To tbe Inhabitants of New Orleans,” Rew Harmony GasettOj
III, 186-187 (April 9, 1828),

139

Baiting the Clergy

ing in strange pastures. It “was unfortunate for Owen’s career as
a reformer that he should have attracted such people, for their
influence served to lure him farther from the path of practical
progress.

Owen’s challenge to the clergy was not allowed to go on un-
accepted, In the early spring of 1828, there appeared in the
Christian Baptist a letter addressed to a correspondent who signed
himself “A.” In this letter Alexander Campbell, the editor and
publisher of the journal, refused to meet a Dr. Underhill, one of
Owen’s followers, but declared himself willing to meet Owen :

Mr. A.-—

Dear Brother — ^YOXJR favor of the 22d ultimato lies before me — I am al-
ways glad to cooperate with the household of faith in support of our common
cause. — As to this Doctor Underhill, he is too obscure to merit any attention
from me on the Atheism and Deism of his philosophy. If I lived in the
neighboihood with him, and should he throw himself in my way, I might
find it my duty either to kill him, or to break a lance over his steel cap. But
to go out of my way to meet such a gentleman would he rather incompatible
with my views of propriety. If his great master, Mr. Eobert Owen, will en-
gage to debate the whole system of his moral and religious philosophy with
me, if he will pledge himself to prove any position affirmative of his atheisti-
cal sentiments as they lie scattered over the pages of the New-Harmony
Gasette — ^if he will engage to do this eooly and dispassionately in a regular
and systematic debate, to be moderated by a competent tribunal, I will engage
to take the negative and disprove all his affirmative positions, in a pubhc
debate to be holden any place equidistant from him and me. I think such a
discussion is needed, and, in the armor of the Bible, I feel prepared to meet
the sage philosopher of New-Harmony at a proper time and place. But in
the mean time I will not draw a bow, save against the king of the sceptics
of the city of Mental Independence.

My dear sir, you are doubtless more than able to drive offi to the wilderness
this wild boar who lies under your hills and sheep folds, seeking whom he
may devour.

Your neighboring clergy are true to the character the Saviour gave of
such folds in his time — The hireling, fleeth when the wolf comethj but the
good shepherd endangereth his life for the sheep. With every benevolent wish,
I am your fellow laborer in the Lord^s vineyard. ^ Campbell ®

Owen was not slow in answering Campbell. He agreed with bim
that “such a discussion is needed” and suggested “Cincinnati or
any other central place in the western country” as the location.

^ Cited by the New Harmony Gazette, III, 215 (April 30, 1828) .

140 Robert Owen

He wanted tlie following points to form the basis of the discussion :

1st. Whetlier all religions are or are not opposed to facts ?

2d. Whether all religions do or do not -virtnally destroy all charity, except
for one sect, in thought, word and action?

3d. Whether religion does or does not render it necessary that the great
mass of mankind, in all countries, should he kept in ignorance and poverty?

4th. Whether all religions do or do not require that infants and children
should he taught to think that there is merit in believing that the doctrines
of their own religion are true and that all other religions are false ; and that
there is demerit in believing otherwise,

5th. Whether all religions do or do not teach that there is merit and demerit
in loving and hating liking and disliking according to their doctrines, whether
in unison with man’s natural feelings or in opposition to them.

6th Whether almost all bad passions, vices and moral evils, do or do not
emanate from the mstruction given in infancy and childhood, that there is
merit and demerit in belief and in liking and disliking.

7th. And lastly, whether mankind can be trained to become more happy,
more intelligent, independent, charitable and kind to each other with or
with out religion?’^

This was indeed a tremendous order ; but Owen was made of the
stuff of iconoclasts, and no idol was too great for him to smash.

In the issue of the N'ew Harmony Gazette of August 6 appeared
a copy of the letter written by Alexander Campbell taken from
the Christian Baptist, The letter was written to Eobert Owen and
was a formal acceptance of Owen’s challenge. Campbell declared
that while he was unwilling to accept the idea that Christianity
was something to be proved true or false, he nevertheless felt that
a discussion was necessary.

Owen in his New Orleans challenge had suggested the calling
together of the clergy that they might see the way of truth. Once
the clergy saw the falseness and error of their position, they would
straightway come over to the path of true rationalism and the
New Moral World. But Campbell declared he would have nothing
to do with calling a conference of the clergy :

As to calliug in a couf erenee of all the clergy and such of your sceptical
friends as you please, for tbe purpose of a sort of general confabulation, I
have to remark as this was no part of the challenge which I have accepted,
I can say nothing about it. I may, indeed, remark that I have no objection
to your assembling all your brethern sceptics from Harmony to Lanark if
any place could be found large enough to hold them. But as only one person

Letter of Eobert Owen to Alexander Campbell, n.d., in the New Earmony
Gazette, III, 228 (May 14, 1828).

Baiting the Clergy 141

can speak at once, to be understood and regarded, I see no good reason of
calling suck an assemblage — ^For my part, kowever, I can cordially agree to
your assembling witk you in tke debate as many of your sceptical friends as
you may think proper.®

The stage was now set for the most famous debate in the history
of religions controversy in the United States. Owen arranged to
call on his antagonist at Bethany on his way to England, when
the time and place of the debate would be determined.

Taking leave of New Orleans, Owen decided to stop at New
Harmony for a few weeks. With his three sons, Eobert Bale,
David Bale, and Richard, he left New Orleans on the steamboat
‘^George Washington” and moved up the Great Eiver. Owen and
his sons watched the passing show — ^the taking on of new passen-
gers, the refueling with great piles of cordwood, and the dis-
charging and receiving of freight of all kinds. Cows bellowed,
pigs squealed, and chickens cackled, while rawboned frontiersmen
talked through their noses and squirted tobacco juice into the
turbid water. Owen, dressed in seedy clothes, moved about among
the passengers striking up discussions on the ‘^New Social System”
whenever he could find a listener.

After many stops for lectures, Owen finally reached the Wabash
in the springtime. The river had spread out over the bottom lands.
Settlers took to the roofs of their cabins, and pigs and other live-
stock were reported balancing themselves on floating trunks of
trees. The sycamores and maples were bursting into green; the
robins hopped over the corn stubble; and the meadowlarks sang
in the damp pastures. But "‘Mr. Owen of New Lanark,” deep in
the problem of redeeming America from the tyranny of the priest-
hood, saw little of this unfolding spring at New Harmony.

After he had rested for a few days, Owen summoned the
inhabitants to meet him in the Hall. He had much to say of the
“superstition and mental degradation” that still prevailed over
Europe and America, but he had hope that the hold of the priests
would soon be broken. However, he had been disappointed with
what had occurred at New Harmony :

I tried kere a new course for wkick I was induced to kope tkat fifty years
of political liberty kad prepared tke American population : tkat is, to govern
tkemselves advantageously. I supplied land, houses, and tke use of muck

® III, 324.

142

Robert Owen

capital; and I tried, eaeli in their own way, all the different parties who
collected here; but experience proved that the attempt was premature to
unite a number of strangers not previously educated for the purpose, who
should carry on extensive operations for their common interest and live to-
gether as a common family. I afterwards tried, before my last departure
hence, what could be done by those who associated through their own choice
and in small numbers; to these I gave leases of large tracts of good land for
ten thousand years upon a nominal rent and for moral conditions only; and
these I did expect would have made a progress during my absence ; but now,
upon my return, I find that the habits of the individual system were so power-
ful that these leases have been, with a few exceptions, applied for individual
purposes and individual gain; and in consequence they must return again
into my hands.®

Owen still held out hope, however, that the people on the New
Harmony estate would unite on a scheme of exchanging their labor
for labor. But it was quite apparent that the community idea was
impossible of achievement at New Harmony, and Owen was fully
aware of it.

By summer Owen was on his way east to see Campbell, his
mind occupied with thoughts of redeeming mankind from religious
superstition.

Traveling to Boston from Cincinnati, Timothy Flint, editor of
the W estern Monthly Review, was a passenger with Owen on the
stage that took them from Wheeling, Ohio, to Baltimore. Flint
wrote an account of his experiences while on the tour. His descrip-
tion of Owen is especially interesting :

Mr. Oweu is by birth a Welshman, is fifty-seven years of age, and would
be taken to be ten years younger. He has a mild and shrewd physiognomy,
noways remarkable, except for wearmg a kind of foreign, or weather beaten
aspect. He stoops a little, and always seems cheerful. He was dressed in blue
broadcloth, with clothes of plain and farmer cut, with roundabout or spencer
buttoned close about him, and he wore a plain straw hat. This gave him a
quaint rusticity of appearance, not much in keeping with his reputation for
opulence ; but happily coinciding with the tenets of his social system, and his
avowed views of the proper order of society

Flint tells of a long debate between Owen and a young lawyer :

It was amusing to observe his [Owen^s] mode of managing his argument
with our vehement and voluble young friend. He patiently heard the harangue

® ^^Address Delivered by Eobert Owen at a Public Meeting of the Inhabitants
of Hew-Harmony, on Sunday, April 13, 1828,’^ Ne'vc Sarmony Gazette, III,
204-205 (April 23, 1828).

^^A Tour,” Western Monthly JReview, II, 193-209 (September, 1828).

Baiting the Clergy 143

of Ms jSuent antagonist to tlie finisli, and in Ms manner of watcMng Mm,
reminded me strangely of the sly old grimalMn waiting calmly for the prey.
Then he ran back in a review of the arguments of his antagonist, refuting
some, parrying others, and treating others with a peculiar kind of irony. This
calm manner of arguing soon raised the voice and temper of his respondent
to a most annoying degree of excitement, and shortly reduced the dispute
to simple affirmation and denial on authority. The point of dispute between
them had chiefly turned on the dogmas of Calvmism.^^

After the lawyer left the stage at Washington, Owen carried
on the debate with “an intelligent lady’’ who was on her way to
Boston. Flint noticed “a most gentlemanly deference” and a “tem-
pering of his customary mordant irony” on the part of Owen as
he argued with the lady. At one point in their discussion she ex-
pressed her feeling of pity for one who held such a “dreary and
desolating creed” as Owen’s — a belief without the hope of im-
mortality. Owen declared that he had never been happier than
in the last twenty-five years, and then he added that she must
feel her hopes dampened when she reflected that the greater part
of mankind would have to endure an “eternal roasting.”

After the lady had finished with Owen, Flint took him in hand.
But the discussion that took place was on a very gentle plane. Flint
was far too liberal in his views to quarrel with Owen. When the
latter spoke of his belief in the perfectibility of man, Flint de-
clared “that amidst the immense improvements and changes of
the present day, I saw clearly increasing avarice and selfishness,
as a melancholy appendage to that improvement — and that I saw
no harbinger to his millennium, except in the old saw, that the
darkest time in the night, is that, which immediately precedes
the dawn”^

As the stagecoach lurched over the rough roads, Flint learned
what a “Christian gentleman” this atheist Owen could be. It was
true that Flint found him unyielding when it came to his ideas;
but Owen was so patient and gentle and so filled with kindness
that no resentment toward him could be harbored.

More lectures in the cities of the Bast followed, and Owen made
his promised visit to Campbell. The two men agreed to meet in
Cincinnati on the second Monday of April the next year. Then
Owen once more took passage for England.

144 :

Boheri Owen

It was while he was in England on this trip that he planned a
colony which made New Harmony and all previons efforts appear
trifling adventures. His new scheme was truly imperial in its
proportions. He determined to approach the Mexican Eepublic
with a request for Texas and a great strip of northern Mexico to
establish his ^‘System.^^

CHAPTER XIV

A MESSAGE TO MEXICO

T he summer of 1828 found Owen once more in England ready
for a new adventure in community building- New Harmony
be left to its fate. Tbe incessant bickerings, dissensions, and
complaints broke bis interest in the place; but these troubles by no
means shook bis faith in tbe truth of the community idea.

One day in that summer, a letter came from Benjamin E. Milan
offering Owen land for colonization in Texas. Milan, together with
General Wavell, bad received grants of land from the Mexican
government. Owen almost at once decided that he too would make
a request for land. There on tbe great plains of Texas he would
start a colony on a truly magnificent scale.

In his eagerness he wrote to the Mexican minister to England,
Rocafuertez. If we are to believe Owen, however, it was tbe Mexi-
can minister who first approached him on the subject. But Owen
wrote of this affair many years later and may easily have forgotten
the sequence of events. In any case, there is a letter from Roca-
fuertez in Owen^s correspondence which indicates pretty clearly
that the former did not initiate tbe scheme for a colony in Texas :

Ivy Lodge, Fulham,

My Dear Sir : 17th OctoT^er, 13^8,

The more I reflect upon your plan [the] more ohstaeles I meet in its execu-
tion, and greater is my apprehension that you mil not succeed in Texas ; the
interest I take in your concerns and the value I set on your time always ap-
plied to useful purposes stimulates me to tell you my candid opinion on this
interesting subject. I am afraid you will be completely disappointed in your
expectations, and in carrying into effect your benevolent scheme of moral
reform in such a country as Texas, and if I dare suggest to you the idea of
giving up your trip to Mexico by the next Packet, I would do it, guided by a
feeling of respect I have for you.

I have sent your memorial to the Mexican Government and have recom-
mended it, but I fear it will not meet the sanction of the Ministry, at all
events I think it would be more advisable to wait for an answer. Hoping you
will excuse my frankness, proceeding from the interest I take in your welfare,
I have the honour to be, My dear Sir,

Your most obedient servant,
Vio^® E0CAJ5'TJERTEZ.=^

^October 17, 1828, in Bolert Owen Correspondence ^ MSS, Manchester
Collection.

[ 145 ]

146

Robert Owen

If the Mexican minister thought he had dampened Owen’s en-
thusiasm, he was very much mistaken. Owen, made of the stuff of
reformers, had already engaged passage on the next packet, and
not all the powers of this earth eonld throw him off the trail to
Mexico and world regeneration.

In a reply to Eocafnertez, Owen declared :

I knew many formidable diffienlties would present tkemselves as I pro-
ceeded in the negotiation, but I have always bad tbe prejudices of mankind
to overcome, and my success has given me confidence to meet them openly
and fairly under every form in which they may rise. And the republic of
Mexico with the Governments of south, north and east, seem to me at this
period to be in a state peculiarly favourable to be beneficially acted upon
to an extent that few unacquainted with the real state of the human mind
in Europe and America can readily imagine. The world is, as it appears to me,
full ripe for a great moral change, and it may be, I think, commenced the
most advantageously in the New World; the Mexican Republic presents
perhaps at the moment the best poiut at which to begm new and mighty
operations

The march was now on to Mexico. Owen wasted no time in
speculating upon his chances of success but shoved off once more
for the new world. He had already composed a memorial for the
Mexican government, in which he sketched his plan for the regen-
eration of the world.

Owen managed to boil down his social ideas to a residuum of two
points, or two sciences, which he claimed to have originated by
experimentation :

The first, the science of forming a superior character in every child to
whom the science shall be applied in his education and circumstances.

The second, the science by which every child to whom it shall be applied
from infancy to maturity, shaU be so trained and placed that, he shall enjoy
the best of every thing for his individual life in security from birth to death.®

Then Owen, coming down to particulars, asked that he be
granted the province of Texas and Coahuila. He asked that the
independence of the new state be guaranteed by Mexico, the
United States, and Great Britain. Then Owen presented an argu-
ment, most remarkable of aU, for the granting of his request :

That it [Texas] is a frontier province between the Mexican and North
American Republics which is now settling under such circumstances as are

® October 31, 1828, in Bobert Owen CoTrespondence, MSS, Manchester
Collection.

“Robert Owen, 'Memorial of Robert Owen to the Mexican Republic,’^
Seoretaria Be Belaciones Exterior es, Ano de 18$8.

147

A Message to Mexico

likely to create jealousies and irritations between citizens of these states
and whieh most probably at some future period will terminate in a war be-
tween the two Eepublics.^

Owen tells us that he received his credentials from Wellington’s
ministry and that he was in every way assisted by his government.
Perhaps in view of England’s interest in Texas at this time, Owen’s
scheme may have been regarded as a way to secure a foothold in
that land. It does seem strange that Owen should have been taken
in hand by Pakenham, British minister in Mexico, and also that
he should have been given a British man-of-war to carry him to
New Orleans after the Mexican mission.

For the details of the trip to Mexico, we have only Owen’s ac-
count. It seem apparent that he landed first in J amaica sometime
late in the fall of 1828. For the first time he came into actual
contact with negro slavery, an institution about to be abolished
in British possessions. But Owen, though always solicitous for the
welfare of the submerged classes, wrote in highly favorable terms
of slavery as he saw it :

The slaves whom I saw on tbe island of Jamaica are better dressed, more
independent in tbeir look, person and manner, and are greatly more free
from tbe corroding care and anxiety than a large portion of tbe working
classes in England, Scotland and Ireland. Wbat tbe condition of these slaves
was in former times I know not. But I request with all the earnestness such
a subject demands, that our good religious people in England will not attempt
to disturb these slaves in the happiness and independence which they enjoy
in their present condition. Eor while they are under humane masters — and
almost all slave proprietors are now humane, for they know it to be to their
interest to be so — ^the West Indian ‘‘slave” as he is called, is greatly more
comfortable and happy than the British or Irish operative manufacturer or
day-labourer. These slaves are secure in sufficiency for the enjoyment of all
animal wants, and they are, fortunately for themselves, in the present stage
of society too ignorant to desire more. If this present condition should not
be interfered with by the abolitionists on the one band, and the religionists
on tbe other, these slaves cannot fail to be generally the happiest members
of society for many years to come — ^until knowledge can be no longer kept
from them.®

These words are in strange contrast to his general social philos-
ophy. Here Owen seems to express himself in favor of ignorance ;

^ lUd.

® British Co-operaioTy pp. 93-94, 1830. Also in Mr, Owen's Memorial to the
Bepublio of Mexico and a Narrative of the JProoeedings Thereon,

148

Bobert Owen

he, the very high priest of education, pronounces himself a con-
vert to the cult of simplicity.

In Jamaica Owen ran into a friend, Admiral Fleming, who com-
manded the fleet in Port Royal harbor. The Admiral gave him a
letter of introduction to the Bishop of Puebla and promised to
send a ship for him when he was ready to leave Mexico. In talking
to Admiral Fleming, Owen admitted two difficulties : one was to
secure introductory letters to the powers of the church in Mexico,
and the other was to get a boat at Vera Cruz to take him to New
Orleans, after he was finished in Mexico City, in time for his
debate with Campbell in Cincinnati. Fleming said he was well
acquainted with the Bishop of Puebla, who was then the only
bishop in Mexico. Fleming had taken him from Old to New Spain
before he was bishop. He was now head of the church in Mexico,
and Fleming offered to give Owen letters of introduction to him.
But the matter of the boat would ^‘depend upon circumstances.”
If the ‘^public service” would permit him to send a ship to Vera
Cruz and from there directly to New Orleans, and if it could be
done “compatibly with the good of the service,” he would send the
ship and let Owen know in time for him to come from Mexico City
to Vera Cruz.

After landing in Vera Cruz, Owen was provided with “a litera
drawn by two mules, with two mounted muleteers, who could not
speak a word of English, and he knew not a word of Spanish. . . .”
But without serious mishap he at length arrived at Jalapa, where
he met Maclure of New Harmony. The two men, once doubtful
friends but now meeting on foreign soil, clasped hands without res-
ervation. Both were now cultivating their philanthropic schemes
far away from New Harmony,

Maclure had apparently stiH retained his faith in Owen's plan
of salvation for the world ; for we find him writing to Poinsett on
Owen's behalf :

Mr. Owen, whose general character you are no doubt acquainted with,
came in the British packet with recommendatory letters to a great many of
the authorities here from some of the most influential rulers of Britain.
Of the great utility of his plans and principles to humanity I am perfectly
convinced and went so far towards encouraging the experiment at New Har-
mony as to put upwards of 90,000 dollars of my fortune out of a productive
fund into the less profitable of land and houses at a price far above their
value. This same conviction of the vast benefit to society such a change as

149

A Message to Mexico

h© contemplates would produce iias rather increased than diminished, since
we only differ on the means of accomplishing it. He prefers the herculean
task of convincing the rulers and higher orders of society that it is to their
interest to promote his reforms. All my experience has taught me that adults
are far beyond the influence of individual exertion and are put past redemp-
tion by the fake education they have been skilled to, while the plyability and
placid nature of their intellect permitted all kind of impressions to take deep
root with their conviction.®

Owen also met a young man from Hamburg by the name of
Robert Haven, who offered his services as an interpreter. Thus
equipped, he pushed along to Perote, where he met General Santa
Anna. That political adventurer, destined to bring much grief to
his people, had just managed the election of Guerrero to the presi-
dency. He received Owen, if we are to believe Owen, with extreme
courtesy, introducing him to members of his staff and other officers
in his army. The general provided him with an escort of cavalry.
And so Owen in great exaltation of spirit made his way to Puebla,
where the bishop lived.

Without delay, Owen, accompanied by his interpreter, drove
to the bishop’s palace and straightway proceeded to convert him
to his view of society. Not only did Owen persuade the churchman
that society was on the eve of revolutionary changes, but he also
convinced the bishop that the great Catholic Church was about
to undergo liberalization and secularization of its property. Fi-
nally the bishop agreed to head a mission to Rome, if necessary, for
the purpose of bringing about more friendly relations between
the people and the government of the Church,^ Of course, all this
is according to Owen’s story. The bishop no doubt was much con-
cerned over secularization but probably did not view its advent
with anything but alarm.

Prom Puebla, Owen serenely moved upon the capital itself. He
placed himself in the hands of the British minister Pakenham,
who procured him an audience with Victoria, the President, Ac-
cording to Owen’s account, Pakenham made a long speech of
presentation, in which he extolled the work done by the philan-
thropist at New Lanark and elsewhere. When he had finished,
Victoria declared that his government had already taken under

® Letter of William Maelure to Joel Poinsett, January 31, 1829, in Poinsett
Papersj Y,

See "Memoranda Relative to Eokert Owen,’^ Yew Moral Worlds I, 377-379
(September 26, 1835).

150

Bohert Owen

consideration tlie subject of a grant to Owen, as tbe Mexican
minister in London bad sent Owen’s memorial and “other favour-
able docnments” concerning Owen. The government had reached
the conclusion that the province of Texas could not be granted,
because it constituted a state whose territory conld not be alienated
nnder the constitution. But the President added :

If Mr. Owen will accept the government of a much more important terri-
tory, which is under the control and at the disposal of the general govern-
ment, we have come to the unanimous decision to offer it to him for the great
and good purposes stated in the memorial which he sent to us. It is a district
extending from the G-ulph of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, and of considerable
breadth along the whole line which divides the United States of North
America from the states of the confederacy of Mexico — and the government
of this extensive district, fourteen or fifteen hundred miles long, we now
freely offer him.®

After the President’s offer had been explained to Owen, the
latter made the objection that, inasmuch as the religion of Mexico
was Roman Catholic to the exclusion of all others, it would be
impossible for him to carry out his great project without religious
toleration. The President immediately replied :

We have, as a Government, taken that subject into full consideration; we
thought it might he an objection; we intend, at the Congress now near at
hand, to propose, as a Government measure, that religion shall be made as
free in the Mexican States as it is now in the North American States.®

Such is Owen’s account of his interview with the President.
One may well doubt that Victoria so readily offered territory to
Owen. No other record of the interview has been preserved, and
no doubt it is a case where Owen, ever believing in his cause,
failed to make allowances for Latin politeness.

Of course Owen met Joel Poinsett, American minister to Mexico,
who at first smelled a British plot for land in the scheme but ap-
parently soon came to the realization that Owen was a harmless
dreamer. The latter wrote in high praise of Poinsett’s political acu-
men. Indeed, the American minister’s interest in Mexican politics
was such as to bring about his recall from Mexico. Owen’s enthu-
siasm for the minister might have been due to the warm praise he
gave to the famous principles. In conversation with Poinsett, Owen
had accused both Great Britain and the United States of quarrel-
ing like tradesmen, an attitude which was carried to the extreme
® J'bid.

^lUd.

151

A Message to Mexico

in Mexico. He had stated that a better understanding and more
dignified conduct should exist between the two goYernments and
their representatives so that they conld influence for good all the
other nations. Poinsett is reported to have said he had long seen
the error of their proceedings and would end such conduct if he
could ; but mutual antagonism was the policy of both governments
at present, Owen, encouraged, then gave Poinsett his views for
the reconciliation of the two nations. Poinsett is quoted as saying
that he would go to any lengths to end the petty national bicker-
ings so that the results which Owen promised could be attained
and that they would be attained if the powers of Europe and
America would honestly adopt Owen’s principles. According to
Owen, Poinsett declared: ‘"for the establishment of principles
and practice, as they are explained in the manuscript, I will make
any sacrifices, and go hand and heart with you in every measure,
that is calculated to produce so much good to the human race.”""®

Owen and Poinsett thereupon had frequent meetings together
to determine the best way to bring about union between Britain
and the United States. Owen requested Poinsett to give him letters
of introduction to President Jackson and to Martin Van Buren,
although he knew them both. But he wanted Poinsett to refer in
these letters to his, Owen’s, ideas for effecting harmony between
Great Britain and the United States. And Poinsett did so.

Having finished his business with the Mexican government,
Owen started for Vera Cruz. He had received dispatches from
Admiral Fleming saying that a ship would await him there. On
the way down, he met Santa Anna again at Jalapa. This time he
was given the opportunity to present his plan to the general and
his oflScers. As usual, Owen wrote that they were much taken with
his project and asked to have copies of his work translated into
Spanish and circulated throughout the republic. Owen also ex-
plained to Santa Anna his plans for his new government on the
border. The general was so enthusiastic about them that he told
Owen to consider him his agent in Mexico to carry out his plans
there. He wanted Owen to give him instructions from time to time
as to what Owen wanted done to help promote his principles Santa
Anna declared he was desirous of doing whatever he could to help

“Eeview of Robert Owen^s Concludmg Speech,” Western Monthly BevieWj
in, 132-145 (September, 1829).

152

Robert Owen

his country, and he believed that Owen’s principles, if put into
practice, would aid Mexico.

At Vera Cruz Owen boarded the ‘Tairy,” the ten-gun brig sent
by Admiral Fleming to convey him to New Orleans. Needless to
state, he converted the captain of the ship to his social views. After
a pleasant voyage, he reached New Orleans, whence he took a river
steamboat for New Harmony.

By April 10, 1829, Owen was in Cincinnati ready for the debate
with Campbell, an account of which will be given elsewhere. Im-
mediately after the close of the debate, Owen visited Washington
again. This time he was to take a hand at settling some of the points
of difference between the United States and Great Britain.

Owen teUs us that he saw the possibility of the United States
and Great Britain being drawn into war as the result of unsettled
boundary disputes and unhappy trade relations. He visioned the
two as standing together for the maintenance of peace and good
will. With such an ideal in mind, he sought an interview with
Martin Van Buren, Secretary of State in the cabinet of Andrew
Jackson.

Jackson had just taken office, and, if we are to believe Owen, he
seemed particularly anxious to establish more friendly relations
with Great Britain. His whole background of conflict with the
English, from his childhood to manhood, was such as to make him
antagonistic toward that country. He was well aware, too, that
Englishmen looked upon him as their enemy. But when Van Buren
presented Owen to the victor of New Orleans, the latter had this to
say, according to Owen :

The British have thought me their enemy, and opposed to them; but they
are mistaken. I wish to be upon the most friendly terms with them, and to
unite the two countries in the closest bonds of amity. I wish that we should
act rationally together, promote each other^s welfare and interest, and put an
end to the petty opposition which has hitherto been the practice between the
two countries. If the British will meet us in the spirit of peace, of good faith,
and sincerity, we are ready to adopt the policy now recommended, and to be»
come permanently united, to support the cause of national liberty between
them.“-

It is very possible that Jackson did make such a speech, to Owen.
There can be no question about his desire to settle the problem of

“• ^^Memoranda Relative to Robert Owen,” Wew Moral World, I, 394 (Oc-
tober 10, 1835),

A Message to Mexico 153

American exclusion from West Indian commerce and to bring
about a reciprocal trade agreement with Britain. In Ms first in-
augural J ackson said :

WitlL Great Britain, alike distinguished in peace and war, we may look for-
ward to years of peaceful, honorable and elevated competition. Everything in
the condition and history of the two nations is calculated to inspire sentiments
of mutual respect and to carry conviction to the minds of both that it is their
pohey to preserve the most cordial relations.^

After being almost constantly in the company of Van Buren for
several days, and after dining with the President and Van Buren,
Owen was provided with letters to Louis McLane, American min-
ister to England. But first of all, it was understood that Owen
should interview Lord Aberdeen, British foreign minister. On
Owen’s return to England, he met the Earl of Aberdeen, who an-
nounced his willingness to negotiate with the United States through
McLane.

From Owen’s account of his diplomatic activities, one is led to
believe that everything was straightway settled to the satisfaction
of all concerned. But the West Indies were opened to American
trade only after many months and not until Congress had passed
a measure offering to grant similar privileges to British ships when
England’s restrictions were removed.

Meantime, news came to Owen that the Mexican Congress had
failed to pass the measure of religious toleration which he desired.
So ended a remarkable chapter in the history of Owen’s life.

^ Eicbardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, II, 443.

CHAPTER XV

GOD AlTD THE NEW SOCIAL SYSTEM

Y oung America was all aflutter in the spring o£ 1829. Andrew
Jackson, triumphant over his enemies, was inaugurated
President amidst scenes of riotous democracy, while far
and wide over the republic spread the news that an atheist and a
Christian were to meet in debate at Cincinnati.

Owen, fresh from his Mexican adventure, stepped from a river
steamer onto the landing at Cincinnati several days before the
date set for the beginning of the battle. It was glorious spring
weather. The yellow water of the Ohio, then at the flood, fairly
boiled as it rolled along toward the Mississippi. Countless columns
of smoke arose from the chimneys of packing houses, foundries,
and small manufacturing plants. Perhaps Owen thought of Man-
chester when he felt the hurry and bustle of this rapidly grow-
ing city.

It did not seem fitting that a debate on Christianity should be
held in such a town. Certainly it must have seemed incongruous
to Mrs. Trollope, who knew only too well the intellectual limitations
of its inhabitants. But Boston, the Athens of America, would never
have tolerated such blasphemy. Then too, Cincinnati — a frontier
town reeking with odors of the pork packing houses — ^had devel-
oped a ruggedness in religion that made it possible to bring such
discussions out into the open.

Though interest was high and rising, there were many who
thought it unseemly that the truths of Christianity should be sub-
jected to the attack of anyone — ^not even ‘Mr. Owen.” The editor
of N^les Weekly Register declared the public would not approve
of such a debate."^ Others, expressing the strong religious bias of
the time, tore into Owen for his presumption. The Literary Digest,
a journal published at Oxford, Ohio, by the faculty of Miami Uni-
versity, had much to say on the debate. It ridiculed Owen for
stopping at the denial of the existence of a Creator ; he should have
denied the existence of all creatures. It also added the following :

There are some things which, meet ns in our intercourse with mankind, that
are adapted to excite laughter and indignation at the same moment. What a

^ See the Niles Weeldy Register, XXXVI, 134 (April 25, 1829).

[ 154 ]

God and the New Social System 155

pack of fools and idiots must not Bobert Owen, and Bobert Bale Owen, and
Paul Brown, and James Eicbards, et id genus omne, believe tbe inhabitants
of the Western wilds to be, that they should take upon themselves the office of
mstructing us I ! I Bobert Owen, by a lucky marriage with the daughter of a
person in whose service he was employed, arrived at the possession of wealth j
and with property, came its usual effects upon weak, ignorant men, who obtain
it by accident; — ^he suddenly imagines himself destined to be a great reformer,
and from his want of knowledge, in some measure incident to his previous situ-
ation in life, delivers as ^^new views,” what has been published for ages. Bobert
Bale Owen, we would humbly suggest, might be profitably employed in the
schools for infants, which our age has seen rise up, until he has made himself
master of so much metaphysics as may be there acquired; and then we shall
think it less presumption in him to write on subjects, Tvhieh he does not under-
stand. As to Paul Brown, James Biehards, and other heroes, we know of nothing
more suitable, than the remedy for all atheists, ^^a shaven head, a blistering
cap, a straight waistcoat and a maniac’s eell.”^

It was not easy to find a place adequate to hold the crowds ex-
pected for the debate. The managers of the contest approached the
pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, but that gentleman was
not disposed to harbor such an affair; therefore they turned to
the Methodists, who were more pliable, with the result that their
“Stone Chapeh^ was secured. The building held only a thousand
people, but apparently all standing room was taken when the de-
bate got under way.

The first meeting took place on Monday morning, April 13. The
Western Monthly Review reported a great crowd of all ages and
both sexes eager to listen to the widely heralded dispute.® A special
platform had been built for the moderators, who were well-known
citizens and included in their number the Eeverend Timothy Flint,
editor of the Western Monthly Review, On the platform with the
debaters sat CampbelFs father, a strikingly venerable figure, while
down in the audience sat Mrs. Trollope, who wrote her impressions
of that first day of the debate :

■Wben Mr. Owen rose, tbe building was thronged in every part ; tbe audience,
or congregation (I hardly know which to call them), were of the highest rank
of citizens, and as large a proportion of best bonnets fluttered there as the
^^two-horned church”^ itself could boast

2 Bobert Bale Owen, ^‘Begarding Two Paragraphs by One of the Professors
of the Miami University,” New Harmony Gazette, III, 310-311 (July 23, 1828) .

® See “Public ChaUenged Bispute between Bobert Owen . . . and Bev. Alex-
ander Campbell . . . ,” Western Monthly Beview, II, 639-647 (April, 1829).

^ So called because it possessed two spires.

156

Uoberi Owen

It was in the prof oimdest silence and apparently with the deepest attention,
that Mr Owen’s opening address was received; and surely it was the most
siagnlar one that ever Christian men and women sat to listen to.

When I recollect its object, and the nncompromising manner in which the
orator stated his mature conviction that the whole history of the Christian
mission was a fraud, and its sacred origin a fable, I cannot but wonder that it
was so listened to ; yet at the time I felt no such wonder. Never did any one
practice the suaviter %n modo with more powerful effect than Mr Owen. The
gentle tone of his voice; his mild, sometimes playful, but never ironical man-
ner; the absence of every vehement or harsh expression; the affectionate in-
terest expressed for ^'the whole human family;” the air of candour with which
he expressed his wish to be convinced he was wrong, if he indeed were so — his
kind smile — ^the mild expression of his eyes — ^in short, his whole manner, dis-
armed zeal, and produced a degree of tolerance that those who did not hear him
would hardly believe possible.®

In that first speech. Owen laid down Ms famous ‘^Twelye Laws,”
and in the next eight days his hearers were destined to hear them
explained over and over again. Reduced to their fighting dress,
they stood about as follows : Man is entirely a creature of his en-
vironment. Everything he is and everything he believes is the result
of the ^^circumstances” he is placed in. Free wiU is an illusion, and
therefore no merit can he attached to believing or disbelieving or
to so-called meritorious action. But Owen, after he had made this
discovery as to the nature of man, made the further discovery that
man could be molded by a system of education into anything
desired.

Campbell, the moderators, and the audiences from day to day,
could not see what the “Twelve Laws” had to do with the falseness
of the Christian religion which Owen had undertaken to prove.
But he felt, no doubt, that if he showed man’s religious beliefs to be
the result of his social environment and that environment varied
in different parts of the world, producing Mohammedanism in one
place, Confuscianism in another, and Christianity in still another,
these religions must all be false. At least they could not be the
revealed word of God. They were merely accidents of certain cir-
cumstances which Owen believed to be very bad.

Owen knew nothing of comparative religions. His knowledge
of the Bible was exceedingly limited. He made no attempt to ques-
tion the authorities that Campbell thrust at him without ceasing.
But he did ridicule the miraculous element in the Christian reli-

® Frances TroUope, Domestic Mammers of the AmeHcans, p. 123.

God and the New Social System 157

gion and did appeal to reason; thus he stood out as a child of
the eighteenth century — ^an intellectual descendant of Paine and
Godwin.

Campbell declared that he had spent a year in preparation for
the debate. And from the amount of erudition he displayed, there
can be little question of the truth of bis statement. But it was all
lost on Owen, who never made any attempt at meeting his opponent
in argument. Probably Campbell had gained the idea that Owen
was a scholar from Owen^s oft repeated boast that he had read five
hours a day for twenty years.

If Owen was not a scholar, he had a certain shrewdness that could
be quite devastating. At one stage in the debate Owen disposed of
Campbelhs theological learning by the following remarks :

I am also mueh indented to my friend, Mr. Campbell, for Ms learned disserta-
tion upon the opinions of others, for I did not trouble myself very much about
a knowledge, in detail, of these opinions before. My researches were not in
that direction, after I ascertained they contained so little really useful prac-
tical information. The object I had in view compelled me to become a practical
man, ^'to study from the life, and in the original peruse mankind.” I have
totally avoided metaphysical reading, because I discovered it was not calcu-
lated to relieve society from its errors and difficulties; it has too many words
and too few f acts.^

On another occasion Owen became more emphatic in his denun-
ciation of metaphysical writings. After speaking of bow the human
mind was deranged by reading such stuff, he declared :

It were happy for mankind if they could all be collected in one heap — ^with
fire placed under it, so that it might be consumed until not a fragment was left.
The conflagration would be the greatest blessing that could now be conferred
upon the human family.'^

And so Owen, the gentle vandal, marched on through the days
of the debate striking out now and then at the “superstitions” of
the faithful ; but for the most part he concerned himself only with
pointing out to the benighted ones the glories of the new rational
system. Time and time again he was pulled up by Campbell and
the moderators for not keeping to his assigned task of demolishing
Christianity, but Owen just as often would smile ever so pleasantly
and ask them to bear up with him until he had led them into a full

® Robert Owen and Alexander Campbell, Debate on the Evidences of Chris-
tianity . . . , I, 67.

153.

158

Boiert Owen

view of Ms system. Once they comprehended the unanswerable
truths of his “Twelve Laws/’ he argued, then the absurdity of their
old beliefs about religion would be clear to them.

Campbell early in the debate saw the futility of getting Owen
to come to hand strokes with him. “I have a strong misgiving,” he
drawled out in nasal tones, “that Mr. Owen is about to give us a
view or theory of the world, as foreign to the appropriate subject
now before the meeting, as would be the history of a tour up the
Ganges.”®

But Owen, not the least disturbed, kept on reading day after
day until he had placed his “System” before his audiences. On
one day he shocked his hearers by taking a fling at marriages :

The invention of unnatural marriages has been the sole origin of all sexual
crimes. They have rendered prostitution unavoidable. They have erected spuri-
ous chastity and destroyed aU knowledge of pure chastity. For real chastity
consists, in connexion with affection, and prostitution, in connexion without
affection.®

At times Owen grew oracular. He declared in all seriousness that
the debate in Cincinnati had ushered in the “first period in the
history of man, when truths the most simple in their nature, and
the most important to the happiness and well-being of man, could
publicly be spoken. There never has been any antecedent time, in
the history of any country,” he stated, “in which any individual
has been permitted to speak as I have done.”^°

Campbell, anxious to explode Owen as an oracle and prophet,
reminded him of Ms prediction “that Cincinnati would become a
deserted or evacuated city before two years ; that the citizens would
all migrate to New Harmony.”^

When Owen drew away from his denunciations of religions to a
consideration of economic problems, he spoke as one inspired. After
calling attention to the vast increase of productive power by the
application of the new technological processes, he declared :

There will soon be so much real wealth produced, by the daily multiplying
labor-saving machines, that nations will be no longer competent to prosecute
any of their present measures with success. This wealth will accumulate, and
become as an impassable mountain barrier to permanent prosperity. It has

« I, 39.

® md., 120 .

“ 243.

God and the New Social System 159

already, in your teelmieal phrase, overstocked many, and soon it will over-
supply all markets ; and require, m consequence, more and more exertion from
the working and middle classes, to enable them to live.

These are the signs of the times. I wish your eyes could be opened, to enable
you to perceive these things even a little way off; for they are, while I speak,
but a short distance from us. I see it m the smoke of your new factories before
me. I hear it in the strokes of your heavy hammers, mechanically moved, which
now din upon the ear. This is one reason why this discussion is so necessary at
this period. It well merits a public contest, to ascertain what that change, which
all things indicate to be so near at hand, shall be; — ^whether it shah return
back to the superstition and ignorance of the dark ages ; or proceed forward, to
bring into full practice, physically, mentally, and morally, the discoveries and
improvements of the past ages, for the benefit of the human raee.“

But Ms audience was not interested in Ms economic ideas. In fact,
Americans of that day were not tonched by economic questions. At
every gathering, at the crossroads or in a village hall, men talked
politics or religion. It is true that there were roads to be built,
canals dug, and land cleared ; but these activities might well be
neglected in a country so rich and productive. In any case, Ameri-
cans of the ’twenties and ’thirties delighted in long sermons and
political harangues.

One Thursday afternoon after the debate had been running
several days, Owen in a somewhat playful mood painted a picture
of death that sent a wave of horror over the audience, according
to the writer in Flint’s Western Monthly Review,

‘^The particles which compose my body,” said the philosopher, ^^are eternal.
They had no beginning and can have no end. I shall be decomposed, and lose my
consciousness in death, to be recomposed, and to reappear in new forms of life
and enjoyment.” At least he could not be charged with disguise or reservation;
but came out with gratuitous plainess, in the most revolting and desultory
tenets of the creed of the everlasting sleep of death. As he uttered this a gen-
eral revulsion of horror passed across the countenance of the crowded audience.^®

Sometimes Owen’s hearers grew a bit obstreperous, especially
when he became quite frank in Ms denunciation of Christianity
and Christians. Toward the end of the debate, after the ^'Twelve
Laws” had been more than adequately explained, Owen opened up
by declaring that Christianity was not of divine origin, not true,
and not beneficial to humanity. But this was not all he had to say

II, 152-153.

^ Western Monthly Meview, II, 251 (April, 1829).

160 Boberi Owen

on the subject. From generalities lie came down with shocking
suddenness to particulars :

My friends, would you not suppose, from wliat you liave heard of the prac-
tical advantages of Christianity, that all is now right amongst you j that you
are very angels in conduct j that you have among you the very perfection of
virtue and of all excellence? But you all well know this is not the case. You
well know that Christian society, all over Christendom, abounds in vice and
iniquity. \JELere there was some stir among the audience.} My friends, if any
of you are afraid to hear the truth, it is time for you to depart. [■H'ere a little
more excitement, and some few left the cJmrch.y^

Owen’s blunt criticism created a small riot in the church. Some
ladies were hurt in the scramble to leave the place out of protest at
the speaker’s sharp language. But Owen kept on with his attack,
calling attention to the undemocratic character of the weekly
preachings in which the minister gives the congregation no chance
to reply to him.“

But in the end Owen always softened the hard things he had
said by adding that all of us are what we are because of circum-
stances and no blame should be attached to the individual. Camp-
bell, he often asserted with a gentle smile, was in no wise responsible
for being a Christian.

The biological difficulties that Owen might have urged against
a literal interpretation of the Scriptures were not part of his stock
in trade. He used none of the arguments against Campbell so effec-
tively employed by Clarence Harrow in his tilt with “William J en-
nings Bryan at the Scopes trial. Of course Campbell gave a very
orthodox view of the Bible and laid himself wide open to attack,
but the debate was in the days before the evolutionary hypothesis
had come upon the scene.

It was a long debate with only a few dramatic moments, but the
audiences were tremendously patient. How they endured the eight
days of intellectual punishment is beyond present-day understand-
ing. Perhaps the long sermons and the dreary editorials had dis-
ciplined them to such fortitude. Certainly no modem audience ever
would have sat through even one of the meetings.

On the last day when both sides had exhausted themselves,
Campbell sprang a surprise. The audience had arisen with the

Robert Owen and Alexander Campbell, op. cit., II, 143.

i^See Ihid., 145.

God and the New Social System 161

apparent intention of leaving the church when Campbell stepped
out and asked them all to be seated.

Every one in a moment sat down in profound stillness.

“You,” said he, “who are willing to testify that you bore the gratuitous vili-
fication of your religion, not from indifference or skepticism, but from the
Christian precept to be patient and forbearing under indignity — you who prize
the Christian religion, either from a belief in it, or a reverance for its mfiuenees,
be pleased to rise.” Instantly, as by one electiic movement, almost every person
in the assembly sprang erect. “Gentlemen,” he continued, “now please be
seated.” All again were seated in almost breathless expectation. ^^You,” said
he, “who are friendly to Mr. Owen^s system, be good enough to rise.” It was
almost with a shiver, that we saw three or four rise from the mass to this
unenviable notoriety. The people resumed their character as sovereigns, for a
moment. A loud and instant clapping and stamping raised a suffocating dust
to the roof of the church.^®

Owen was not greatly disturbed. He merely bowed and smiled,
giving evidence now and then of a little perplexity at this sud-
den maneuver. But Campbell, long practiced in Kentucky camp-
meeting strategy, knew only too well how to give his cause the air
of a triumph.

And so the debate came to an end with the victory of Christianity
over infidel Owen. There was nothing now for Owen to do but
return to England. He had come with a message of salvation for
America, but she too turned a deaf ear to him.

Timothy Flint, “Public Challenged Dispute between Eobert Owen . . . and
Eev. Alexander Campbell . . . Western Monthly BevieWj II, 639-647 (April,
1829).

CHAPTBE XVI

INTO THE WHIELWIND

W HILE OWEN toiled to make Ms dream world a reality in
America, England was deep in change. The great ener-
gies unleashed by the Industrial Eevolution tore to bits
the old order based upon the landed aristocracy. Indeed, the years
following the close of the Napoleonic wars were without a parallel
in the long history of the island kingdom. Everywhere machinery
poured forth an abundance of goods; everywhere poverty and
hunger stalked.

In earlier times when the poor cried for bread, men looked about
and said : “It is the bad crops that bring us to tMs want.’' Or per-
haps the wars were blamed. But now the causes seemed more re-
mote. The fields yielded bountiful harvests ; the mills, equipped
with the most cunning macMnery, rolled out goods in magnificent
profusion; the country was at peace ; yet the army of unemployed
marched in ever increasing numbers. Such was the paradox that
confronted Englishmen. Some said the currency was to blame;
others called attention to the unequal distribution of the new
wealth. Their numbers were legion who blamed the oligarchy of
Tories which constituted the government of England. The causes
given for the distress were as numerous as the witch doctors who
offered cures.

It was this paradox of starvation and want amidst plenty that
Owen sought to solve. Believing absolutely in the efficiency of rea-
son to conquer the problems of society, he refused to bow before
the inevitableness of poverty. He looked upon poverty as the result
of an irrational social order to be entirely eliminated by the appli-
cation of his well-known remedies.

Robert Dale Owen, in writing of the diminished income of the
working classes after the advent of the Industrial Eevolution,
explained his father’s attitude toward the problem :

As a cure for such evil and suffering, father found the political econo-
mists urging a reduction of taxes. But his experience taught him to regard
that as a mere temporary palliative. The very reduction of government bur-
dens might be taken as an all-sufficient plea for the further reduction of
wages. Labour could be afforded for less. And down to the very point at which

[ 162 ]

Into the Whirlwind

163

it can be afforded, — ^whicb means at that point on the road to famine at which
men are not starved suddenly, but die slowly of toil inadequately sustained by
scanty and unwholesome food, — down to that point of bare subsistence my
father saw the labourer of Britain thrust. How? Wherefore? By what leger-
demain of cruelty and injustice?

Thus the problem loomed upon him. We may imagine his reflections. Why,
as the world advances in knowledge and power, do the prospects and the com-
forts of the mass of mankind darken and decline? How happens it that four
or five centuries have passed over Britain, bringing peace where raged feuds
and forays, affording protection to person and property, setting free the
shackled press, spreading intelligence and liberality, reforming religion and
fostering civilization, — ^how happens it that these centuries of improvement
have left the British labourer twofold more the slave of toil than they found
him? Why must mechanical inventions — ^inevitable even if they were mis-
chievous, and in themselves a rich blessing as surely as they are inevitable —
stand in array agmnst the labourer, instead of toiling by Ms side ?

Momentous questions these ! My father pondered them day and night. If he
had tersely stated the gist of Ms reflections, — ^which he was not always able
to do, — ^they might have assumed some such form as tMs: Will any man, who
stands on his reputation for sanity, afOLrm that the necessary result of over-
production is famine? that because labour produces more than even luxury
can waste, labour shall not have bread to eat? If we can imagine a point in
the progress of improvement at which all the necessaries and comforts of life
shall be produced with out human labour, are we to suppose that the human
labourer, when that point is reached, is to be dismissed by his masters from
their employment, to be told that he is now a useless incumbrance which they
cannot afford to hire?

If such a result be flagrantly absurd in the extreme, it was then, and is now,
in Great Britain, a terrible reality in the degree. Men were told that machines
had filled their places, and that their services were no longer required. Certain
English economists scrupled not to avow the doctrine, that a man born into a
world already occupied and overstocked with labour has no BIGHT to claim
food; that such a one is a being superfluous on the earth, and for whom, at
the great banquet of nature, there is no place to be found.

My father's conclusions from the data wMch I have here furnished were: —

1. That the enormously increased productive powers which man in modem
times has acquired, involve, and, in a measure, necessitate, great changes in
the social and industrial structure of society.

2. That the world has reached a point of progress at which co-operative in-
dustry should replace competitive labour.

3. That society, discarding large cities and solitary homes, should resolve
itself into associations, each of fifteen hundred or two thousand persons, who
should own land and houses in common, and labour for the benefit of the com-
munity. In tMs way (he believed) labour-saving power would directly aid, not
tend to oppress, the workman.’-

^ Bobert Dale Owen, Threading My Way, pp. 223-225.

164

Robert Owen

No one knew Owen better, no one has interpreted Mm more faith-
fully than his eldest son, Robert Dale. Why should men starve in a
land of plenty ? That was the question that he faced so boldly.

The generation that grew into manhood when Owen came forth
with his plan of salvation knew much of Adam Smith and David
Ricardo. Both economists had preached the sacredness of private
property, but they had also given much strength to those who at-
tacked that institution. They, especially Ricardo, had emphasized
the part played by labor in fixing exchange value. Thus laying
down the labor theory of value had paved the way over which the
socialists could walk. If labor produced all wealth, then labor
should enjoy that wealth.

Not only did Ricardo strengthen the arm of those who struck at
private property, but the tables of statistics turned out by Patrick
Colquhoun made fine reading for those who would overthrow the
capitalistic system.^ His work showed that the United Kingdom,
with a population in 1812 of 17,096,803, produced wealth amount-
ing to about £430,500,000. This was a mighty increase over the
closing decades of the eighteenth century, but the most optimistic
Englishman could not help feeling disturbed over the distribution
of the new wealth. A few figures tell the story. The aristocracy,
composed of the higher and lower nobility and numbering 416,000
persons, received £58,000,000, an amount sufficient to give £100 to
£400 a person. The people belonging to the class of the yeomanry,
numbering 1,400,000 persons, received forty millions, or £20 to £50
each. The merchant class fared much better in receiving from £112
to £260 a person. But the saddest part of the tale comes when the
agricultural laborers and the industrial workers of the cities are
reached. These classes, according to ColquhouMs figures, received
but £11 a person.®

Colquhoun’s figures were convincing enough that something was
wrong about the system of distribution. And when he, as well as
Ricardo, emphasized that labor was the source of wealth, little
more was needed to send the radicals, including Owen, into the
forum. In fact, Owen was constantly using Colquhoun’s figures to

^ See Patrick Colquhouii, Wealth, Fewer, and Resources of the British Bm-
pire, pp. 124-128.

^ See IMd. These are Owen’s interpretation of the figures given by Colquhoun.
They have been cheeked against the original work by Colquhoun and are sub-
stantiaUy correct.

Into the Whirlwind 165

drive liome Ms arguments for communities. Yet Colquhoun, Mm-
self, fully justified tlie maldistribution of wealth.

While Smith, Eicardo, and Colquhoun unwittingly put argu-
ments into the mouths of the revolutionary thinkers of Owen’s day,
Godwin consciously colored all of them. His emphasis was upon
the life of reason, upon equality, and upon the perfectibility of
man. Godwin’s ideal was a society of free individuals where there
was no government and where the slogan would be : “to each ac-
cording to his needs.”

Eicardo, Godwin, Cobbett, and a great host of lesser lights
promised to give England a new day. And England, groping in
the darkness of poverty and unemployment, needed the light. But
somehow it came not. The laissez-faire philosophy of Smith, the
anti-corn-law doctrine of Eicardo, the academic anarchism of God-
win, the figures of Colquhoun, and the political reform agitation
of Cobbett all created a mighty stir. But the poor still marched in
hunger through the streets. Then came Owen, the greatest of all
the social messiahs of that day, and straightway the air became
clearer.

Owen came back to stay in an England that was indeed torn by
the winds of doctrine. During his brief sojourn in America, his
own teachings were reborn in the minds of many devoted disciples.
They went about among the lowly preaching the gospel of commu-
nity life with the promise of educational opportunities for their
children and abundance for all.

Among Owen’s disciples in those early years, William Thompson
stands out head and shoulders above the rest. He proved to be the
St. John who gave to Owenism the philosophical form it needed,
Thompson was a prosperous landed proprietor of County Cork in
Ireland. He came to be deeply impressed by Owen’s teachings and,
after much wrestling with the spirit, produced a work which he
gave the formidable title of Inquiry into the Principles of the Bis-
trihution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human Happiness. He had
started out by being attracted to Bentham, especially the Bentham-
ite creed that happiness should be the end of all economic en-
deavor. He ended his quest for a way out by embracing Owen’s
philosophy that the cooperative life with the common ownersHp
of property was the best means to attain happiness.

Thompson, in turning away from Bentham to join Owen, re-

166

Bohert Owen

garded the laborer as the real producer of wealth and therefore
came to be intent on an economic system that would reward him.
Thompson felt that the system of private property did not give to
the real producers of wealth the security and reward to bring about
an adequate production of goods. The goods that were produced
went to a few in the form of rent and interest. He argued for
equality in distribution not so much because it conformed to the
facts of economics, but because equality would bring about greater
happiness and greater utility. He practically admitted that the
surplus value was produced by capital and not by labor.

In order to attain the very desirable end of happiness for the
greatest number, Thompson advocated the formation of communi-
ties after the pattern of “Owen of New Lanark.” His second work,
Lai our Rewarded, is devoted to this principle. Labor unions were
to be the units out of which the new cooperative societies of pro-
duction were to be built. The trade unions should save their money
in good times and buy machinery and buildings so that the unem-
ployed could be taken care of. He pointed out that labor, to be freed
from the evils of the capitalistic system with its rents, profits, and
interest, must seek to buy land and form general cooperative socie-
ties for the production of all their wants. By cooperative societies
he meant communities of common ownership of property and mu-
tual aid.

Thompson was very much in earnest and became one of the most
active leaders in the numerous cooperative meetings and congresses
held in the Twenties and Thirties. He was a member of the London
Co-operative Society and a contributor to the Co-operative Maga-
zine, When he died it was found that he had left aU his property
to be used in the furtherance of the movement toward communities.

Another follower of Owen, but not so profound a student of
society as Thompson, was George Mudie. This man journeyed from
Scotland to London, where he came to be editor of the Economist,
a paper ultimately supported by the London printers and devoted
to the cause of cooperation.

Mudie, like many other followers of Owen, regretted Owen’s
antireligious stand. Many years after Mudie had been active in
the cooperative movement in London and at Orbiston, where he lost
everything he possessed, he wrote a letter to Owen begging for
help. Apparently his habits were irregular, and Owen in refusing

Info the Whirlwind

167

him aid reminded him of this. Mudie then wrote Owen a very plain
letter in which he told him why his (Owen’s) schemes had come to
naught. He told Owen that his never-ending metaphysical discus-
sions and arguments had worked mischief to the cooperative move-
ment. He further declared that Owen had been all wrong about
‘‘equality and community of goods” and reminded him that Ricardo
had run him into a corner.'^

Though these hard words came from a disgruntled man, they
have the ring of truth in them. Others wrote to Owen in the same
vein.

Another Owenite in this period was John Minter Morgan, who
wrote a book entitled The Revolt of the Bees, a popular work in
interesting style and much in favor among the cooperators. Of
course Owen was the “wise bee” who showed the unhappy bees the
way out of their misery.®

Morgan looked upon society as a hive of bees which had strayed
from the natural order of communal life to one of private property
with all its selfishness, misery, and crime. After a time a clever
bee invented a contrivance by which honey and wax could be made
with far fewer workers. Other bees followed in the footsteps of the
ingenious bee with the result that thousands of workers were
thrown out of employment. Confronted with this problem, the bees
who had adopted the profession of political economy stepped for-
ward and declared that the distress of unemployment could only
be relieved by greater accumulations of honey in the hands of the
few who were very rich. At this juncture one of the cleverest of
the drones came out with the bold doctrine that all the misery and
trouble was due to the great increase in numbers of the workers.
He declared in a loud voice that no matter how much honey was
produced the number of workers would increase still faster.

Paced with such pessimistic talk, the workers felt that suicide
was the only course open to them. In the midst of their despair,
out from the crowd of workers flew a wise and good bee who pointed
the way to a better life. But his advice was not taken, for he was
looked upon as a dreamer. Whereupon he flew off to a distant land
for a time.

* See letter of George Mudie to Bobert Owen, August 29, 1828, in Bolert
Owen Correspondencef MSS, Manchester Collection.

^ See Max Beer, Sistory of British Sooial%sm, 1, 228-229.

168

Bobert Owen

This was Morgan’s way of explaining the social conditions fol-
lowing the Napoleonic wars and the advance of the Industrial
Revolution. Owen was the prophet of hope who came to hearten
the workers after the chilly pessimism of Malthus and his sup-
porters. There can be no doubt Owen did that very thing : he
brought hope at a time of despair. He set thousands adreaming
with him — dreaming of a better England.

John Francis Bray was another follower of Owen who saw in
cooperation the remedy for the evils of the time. His work Labour’s
Wrongs and Labour’s Bemedy gives an analysis of the evils char-
acteristic of capitalistic society and at the same time offers the
way out.

The way out was not to organize communities with common
ownership of property at the start. Human nature, he felt, was
too much depraved by the economic system based upon profits,
rent, and interest to make such communities a success. He advo-
cated, rather, the organization of joint stock companies of workers
who would operate the production and distribution system of the
entire country. They would be rewarded by wages paid according
to the time spent in productive work. His scheme has some of the
same characteristics put forth by the Soviets in the early stages of
Russian communism.

In the crowd of Owen’s disciples stood John Gray, who also
wrote against the competitive system. He joined Combe at Orbiston
and finally in his book, Social System, came to be a vigorous advo-
cate of labor exchanges. His experience at Orbiston and the failures
of other communities made him wary of applying socialism to
production.

Many others, moved by the gentle, smiling ^‘Mr. Owen of New
Lanark” with his gospel of hope, raised their voices in protest
against an order that condemned countless thousands of English-
men to a life of hopeless poverty and ignorance. For it must be
remembered that Owen preached not only a gospel of economic
plenty, but, more than that, he brought a message of light for
those denied educational opportunities.

While Owen importuned the rich and mighty in England, Ire-
land, and America, little bands of his humble followers met in
empty lofts and shabby halls. Like the early Christians, they
planned to carry on the principles of their teacher by forming

Inio the Whirlwind

169

communities of mutual aid and cooperation where their children
might be educated. The great problem before all of them was how
to accumulate the necessary capital. But many little groups with
ardent zeal saved their pennies, hoping that some day their ideal
would be realized.

One of the first societies was formed as the result of the enthusi-
astic work of George Mudie. In 1821 he presuaded some printers
in London to establish the Economical and Co-operative Society.
The immediate object of the society was to buy food, clothing, and
other necessaries at wholesale prices; but the ultimate object was
to establish a “village of Unity and Mutual Co-operation.’’ For a
few months it flourished, and then came complete silence. It had
failed from lack of funds, so Robert Southey declared.®

It was followed by the London Co-operative Society, organized
in 1824, and then came a long roll of others. Some reached the
stage where their members lived together in common quarters,
sharing the same kitchen and thus seeking to attain in a small way
the Owenite ideal. But more of them never reached their goal of
communism ; they stopped at cooperative buying, hoping to gain
enough capital by their savings to enter into the promised land.

The story of the London Co-operative Society is one of a few
enthusiastic Owenites gathering together to form a true commu-
nity. They held meetings and social festivals at their rooms in
Burton Street, Burton Crescent, London. Later they moved to
Red Lion Square, where they continued to be a center of propa-
ganda for years. The society published the Co-operative Magazine
and Monthly Eerald — a journal devoted to cooperation.

Owen, himself, often came to their social festivals, where he
beamed in a most benevolent fashion upon the admiring throng.
Sometimes he gave lectures on the “New System,” when a great
crowd would gather eager for his message.

The society also promoted debates and discussions which created
no little stir. Soon they found it necessary to hire the “Crown and
Rolls” in Chancery Lane; and it was there the Owenites came to
battle with a group of intellectuals, including John Stuart Mill.
In his Autobiography f Mill tells of their discussions :

There was for some time in existence a society of Owenites, called the
Co-operatiye Society, which met for weekly public discussions in Chancery

° See Eohert Southey, Sir Thomas More, or Colloquies, 1, 139.

170

Boiert Owen

Lane. In tLe early part of 1825, accident bronglit Eoebnck in contact with
several of its members, and led to his attending one or two of the meetings
and taking part in the debate in opposition to Owenism. Some one of us
started the notion of going there in a body and having a general battle : and
Charles Austin and some of his friends who did not usually take part in our
joint exercises, entered into the project. It was carried out by concert with
the principal members of the Society, themselves nothing loth, as they natu-
rally preferred a controversy with opponents to a tame discussion among their
own body. The question of population was proposed as the subject of debate :
Charles Austin led the case on our side with a brilhant speech, and the fight
was kept up by adjournment through five or six weekly meetings before
crowded auditories, including along with the members of the Society and
their friends, many hearers and some speakers from the Inns of Court. When
this debate was ended, another was commenced on the general merits of
Owen^s system: and the contest lasted about three months. It was a lutte
corps a corps between Owenites and political economists, whom the Owenites
regarded as their most inveterate opponents : but it was a perfectly friendly
dispute. We who represented political economy, had the same objects in view
as they had, and took pains to show it ,* and the principal champion on their
side was a very estimable man, with whom I was well acquainted, Mr. William
Thompson, of Cork, author of a book on the Distribution of Wealth, and of
an ^^appeal' in behalf of women against the passage relating to them in my
father^s Essay on Government. Ellis, Boebuck, and I took an active part in
the debate, and among those from the Inns of Court who joined in it, I re-
member Charles Villiers. The other side obtained also, on the population
question, very efdcient support from without. The well-known Gale- Jones,
then an elderly man, made one of his fiorid speeches,* but the speaker with
whom I was most struck, though I dissented from nearly every word he said,
was Thirlwall, the historian, since Bishop of St. David’s, then a Chancery
barrister, unknown except by a high reputation for eloquence acquired at
Cambridge Union before the era of Austin and Macaulay. His speech was in
answer to one of mine. Before he had uttered ten sentences, I set him down
as the best speaker I had ever heard, and I have never since heard any one
whom I placed above him.’’

The society struggled along trying to raise money so that Owen’s
ideals could he put in practice. The members had set £50,000 as
the goal, but after two years they had raised only four thousand
Some of the members grew impatient and formed another society,
the Co-operatiye Community Fund Association, with the same
ultimate aims ; hut their plan was to operate with a much smaller
capital. The society proposed to raise a fund of £1,250 by selling
fifty shares of £25 each. The shares were to be paid for on the in-
stallment plan — each member contributing at least four shillings

Pp. 82-8B.

Into the Whirlwind 171

per week.'' This -venture, like so many other similar ones, seems to
have vanished into thin air.

In this time of sprouting communities, another organization
came to life : the Union Exchange Society. The members of this
ephemeral society met at 36 Red Lion Square, the headquarters
of the London Co-operative Society, and sold each other such
goods as tea, bread, flour, boots, shoes, clothes, umbrellas, carved
and gilt articles, and brass and tinware. Ten per cent was levied
on the gross sales to be put into a common fund and distributed
to the members as profits after expenses of the building were de-
ducted. For a time they did an increasing business ; but, like all
the rest, it passed away without any adequate explanation.

Far and wide the cooperative movement spread over the land.
In Brighton an association was formed that lasted for several
years and published a journal called the Brighton Co-operator.
In Cork elaborate plans for a community were sketched, but they
never went beyond the paper stage. Cooperative journals flourished
and died, as might be expected. The Co-operative Magazine contin-
ued until 1830. In London appeared the Co-operative Miscellany
and the British Co-operator. A little earlier came the organization
of the British Association for Promoting Co-operative Knowledge.
It came into being in response to the demands for information
from several hundred newly formed societies.

William Thompson rode along on the wave of cooperative en-
thusiasm. He spoke at the congresses and aroused the jealousy of
Owen. He also published a manual for the guidance of the new
societies: Practical Directions for the Speedy and Economical
Establishment of Communities. In this work he laid down the
principle that mutual production and trade should lead to the
founding of complete cooperative communities as soon as they
were able to save enough money out of trading. His idea of what
a community should be followed somewhat closely the plan laid
down by Owen. He did not hesitate to suggest the most minute
and personal rules for the governance of the relationship between
the sexes and the regulation of the birth rate.

In all this time Owen was bombarded with letters from eager
would-be cooperators who wanted his blessing for their particular

® Se© the Co-operative Magaisme, I (no page or date given), cited by Frank
Podmore, Bo’bert Owenj II, 380.

172

Bobert Owen

schemes. He participated in the cooperative congresses held every
six months starting with the spring of 1831, There were magnifi-
cent enthusiasm, vast plans, and very little money raised. Most
of the societies never reached the community stage; but many of
them did a little cooperative bxi3dng and selling, which was not
altogether to the liking of “Mr. Owen of New Lanark.”

In those years when community building was much talked of,
Abram Combe, a Scotchman of independent means, came under
the spell of Owen. The result was a book entitled Metaphorical
Sketches of the Old and the New System. In this work he gave
the parable of the Cistern. It was another indictment of the com-
petitive capitalistic system with the cooperative system on the
Owenite basis thrown in at the end as a cure.

After a number of short-lived experiments, Combe, whose whole
character had been changed by his contact with Owen, launched
out on the most ambitious experiment in community life thus far
attempted in England. He, together with Archibald James Hamil-
ton, founded the so-called Orbiston Community near Glasgow.
Into Orbiston, Combe put £20,000, all the money he possessed.
The scheme got under way about the same time that New Har-
mony was starting.

Combe’s greatest mistake was the same as Owen made at New
Harmony. He permitted the worthless and lazy to enter the com-
munity. But in so doing he was at least consistent with the prin-
ciples of the new system. “We set out,” he declared, “to overcome
Ignorance, Poverty and Vice ; it would be a poor excuse for failure
to urge that the subjects of our experiment were ignorant, poor
and vicious.”®

Combe and his associates had secured an estate of 291 acres for
the colony and started to work on a building designed to house
1,000 persons. It was to be four stories high and to consist of a
center and two large wings. As it turned out, only one wing was
completed with quarters for about 300 persons ; but these quarters
were arranged on a generous scale. Each adult was provided with
a separate apartment, and common kitchens and dining rooms
were constructed.

The plans for the comfort and well-being of the communists

® OrMston Register, 1, 125 (no date given), cited by Frank Podnaore, op. cit.,
I, 360.

Into the Whirlwind

173

were indeed elaborate. Combe, a most ardent disciple of Owen,
determined that no halfway measures would be employed. Edu-
cation for the children was to be a most important part of the
community life, even as Owen, his master, would have it.

By 1826, Combe had gathered together his people ; and, though
the buildings were by no means finished, the start was made. As
might be expected, everything went wrong. Combe refused at
first to use compulsion on the lazy and shiftless people who com-
prised his community. The result was that everyone did as little
as possible. An example is given of the prevailing spirit in the
preparation of ground for the planting of potatoes. One day in
the early spring, twenty or thirty community members turned out
to spade the ground for the planting. For an hour or so the work
proceeded at a good pace ; then weariness overtook them, and the
work stopped altogether.

By summer the idealistic Combe realized that some of his fine
principles must give way to measures more practical and energetic.
He, therefore, organized his people into squads or companies for
the carrying on of specific duties. There was the Garden Squad,
the Dairy Squad, and a Building Company together with many
others, all carrying An within the community. For a time, the
enterprise seemed to have prospered.

At a meeting of the community held in September of 1826, a
resolution was proposed and passed calling for unity in producing
a common stock of goods out of which the common expenditures
could be paid ; but the surplus should be divided among the mem-
bers according to the time occupied by each. Thus the important
principle was laid down that equal pay for all kinds of labor
should be given. The communist principle of ^‘from each according
to his abilities and to each according to his needs'^ was not exactly
carried out.

As the enterprise got under way, it appears that the more shift-
less and unsocial members were eliminated; but many stiE re-
mained whose conduct was far from exemplary. The OrMston
Register , organ of the community, reported that some of the mem-
bers had turned in to the timekeeper fictitious accounts of hours
worked. It also became the practice of many to work just enough
to draw their fuE credit for food and clothing and to leave to
others the problem of creating a surplus for the public good. From

174

Boleri Owen

available figures on tbe per capita consumption of those who ate
at the common tables and those who drew out their food and pre-
pared it themselves, it is clear that those who preferred to handle
their own food were selling it or giving it to outsiders. Their
consumption was certainly far ahead of those who dined at the
common tables.

Around came the summer of 1827. Orbiston seemed to be in
a fair way to success. Owen had visited it and had given his bless-
ing to the community. Then fell disaster : Abram Combe died on
August 11, 1827, supremely confident that his dream had been
realized. For a few weeks the colony went on as before, now under
the management of William Combe, his son. Then William struck
with great suddeness upon the demand of those who had lent
money to the community. He gave the members notice to quit
the premises, and shortly thereafter the whole concern was put
up at public auction. The success of the community was only
external, only in the seeming. In reality, it had never been any-
thing but insolvent. Combe’s wife was left penniless, and Alex-
ander Campbell, an ardent Owenite and backer of the scheme,
went to jail to satisfy the vengeance of the creditors.

But cooperation went marching on pretty much undisturbed
by the failures of New Harmony and Orbiston. And to Owen these
failures were as unreal as goblins. While cooperation gathered
speed, it was not the cooperation that Owen planned. There was,
as he declared, “too much buying and selling in it.” Indeed, as it
developed it took on the characteristics of joint stock enterprises
with the profits going to the shareholders; but the movement,
nevertheless, has proved a boon to the masses, who have thus
effected economies in buying necessities. Moreover, Owen was to
live long enough to see the Eochdale Pioneers, members of his
own cult, open their store in Toad Lane, thus starting a cooperative
movement destined to attain vast proportions. And so it falls out
in the affairs of men that they do other than they intend.

After his return from America in 1829, Owen was tremendously
busy with meetings and his writings. He was far too occupied with
his great cause to give much attention to his family. New Lanark
saw him but seldom. His wife and three daughters, Anne, Jane,
and Mary, were left to struggle along on a much diminished in-
come ; for Owen was now a comparatively poor man. The great

Into the Whirlwind

175

bulk of bis fortune bad gone into tbe New Harmony business, and
tbe rest was soon to be engulfed in bis labor exchanges and other
experimental schemes.

On September 23, 1830, Owen’s wife wrote him a pathetic letter
reminding him of the approaching anniversary of their wedding .

I hope you will remember next Thursday, the day when we became one —
thiity-one years ago, and I think from what I feel myself that wv love one
another as sincerely and understand one another much better than we did
thirty-one years ago. My sincere wish is that nothing may ever happen to
diminish that affection.^®

In the same letter she told of their daughter Anne’s sickness
and the necessity of moving to more humble quarters. She de-
dared that on her diminished income she could not afford more
than £30 a year for rent. Mrs. Owen was paying the usual price
for being the wife of a man who felt that his mission was to save
humanity.

Mrs. Owen wrote her husband another letter on October 2, re-
porting that Anne was very ill But Owen, who was probably
living in John Walker’s house in Bedford Square, London, appar-
ently thought his work more important, for he wrote to J ane a
few days later expressing concern over Anne’s health, but then
he went on to tell Jane how busy he was with his plans. He dis-
closed to her that he was about to make public “the most important
truths” at the City of London Tavern on Wednesday next. He was
anxious to get the attention of the ministry, but he was afraid
that the ignorant part of the aristocracy would prevent the gov-
ernment from acting.^

Anne died a few days later — Amie who was her father’s devoted
disciple. Just what she meant to him is best disclosed in a letter
written to his son Robert a short time after her death :

There is no one with whom I have conversed whose judgment was more
severely correct than her’s upon all subjects connected with the improvement
of the mind and dispositions. "Whatever was calculated to assist her in the
education of her pupils she studied with unabating interest; and even you
would be surprised to hear of the number of works which she read to store
her mind with useful facts on aU subjects, for the benefit of those under her

“ In Bo'bert Owen Correspondence^ MSS, Manchester CoUeetion.

^October *16, 1830, in Bo'bert Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manchester
CoUection.

176

Robert Owen

charge. She had patience, perseverance, an accurate knowledge of human
nature; and took a degree of interest in the progress and happiness of her

pupils such as I never saw equalled. Her little charge, Nora C , who

had the benefit of her more than maternal cares for about two years, is a
striking proof of what may be effected by tuition. I have never seen a child
at her age whose character has been so well formed. Even in those accomplish-
ments which your sister herself had eared for and cultivated little in her own
person, she continued to make little ISTora a proficient; in dancing, for instance.
She taught her to reason upon all subjects with a degree of correctness seldom
attained to by those twice her age.^®

The next spring, in 1831, Mrs. Owen died, and a year later,
Mary, the youngest daughter, passed away. Jane, the only liying
daughter, joined her brothers in New Harmony, where she mar-
ried Eobert Fauntleroy, Just how these losses affected Owen it is
difficult to determine. By 1830 he had apparently passed beyond
the stage where mere personal losses counted in his life. He became
now the embodiment of an idea. All his movements and every word
he spoke were manifestations of that idea. Cooperatives, labor
exchanges, communities, and trade-unions were mere attempts
to find a material expression for the ideal rational society where
abundance and happiness would prevail.

While his family at New Lanark was breaking up, Owen con-
tinued to bombard the government with letters and petitions. To
the Duke of Wellington as prime minister he sent requests for a
hearing, but the Duke’s secretary always wrote back that His Grace
could not see him.

The year 1832 was a memorable one for England. The agitation
for parliamentary reform had now assumed revolutionary pro-
portions. The shouting of the great captains of the people grew
into a roar for parliamentary reform. William Cobbett, Francis
Place, William Lovett, and Joseph Hume called out to Englishmen
to follow them in a great attack upon privilege. But Owen stood
high and calm above the battling hosts. In fact, he, looking down
from the vast heights of the New Jerusalem, smiled with that
patient smile of his always in evidence when men strayed out in
false paths. Why storm and agitate about parliaments and such
temporary devices as political reform when all these would be
swept away at one stroke by the new social order f

In the m idst of the uproar, Owen launched a journal with the

In the Eree JEnguireT, 2d series, III, 183 (April 2, 1831).

Into the Whirlwind

177

very fitting title of the Crisis. He brought Robert Dale Owen from
America to help him with the editing. The prospectus given in the
first issue was indeed formidable : ^The Crisis’ will upon all
occasions discourage religious animosities, pohtical rancour, and
individual contention; %ts fixed purpose ieing to promote real
charity j hindness, and union among all classes, sects, and parties.^^^^
Coming down to particulars, the immediate aims were set forth :
^‘We must not, however, conclude this Prospectus without stating,
most distinctly and unequivocally, that one great object we have
at heart, is first, to put a stop to the rapid sinking of the Industrial
Classes into poverty, crime, and wretchedness.’”®

Back of the Crisis stood the “Association of the Intelligent and
Well-disposed of the Industrious Classes for Removing Ignorance
and Poverty by Education and Employment.” This organization,
with such a vast and descriptive name, was the first of a long line
of similar propaganda societies fabricated by Owen in the many
years of his messiahship.

The Association established headquarters on Gray’s Inn Road,
London, under the name of the Institution of the Industrious
Classes. Soon the Institution came to be the scene of moving enter-
prises. Owen lectured every Sunday to large and “respectable
audiences.” Social festivals were given monthly where crowds of
working class and middle class people made merry until midnight,
when Owen usually sent them home.

In the spring of 1832 the Third Co-operative Congress was held
at the headquarters of the Institution. William Lovett, one of the
delegates, in writing of the Congress declared:

We had much talk, but did very little business; the chief object of interest
to many (that of forming an incipient community upon the plan of Mr.
Thompson, of Cork) being stoutly opposed and jSnally marred by our friend
Mr, Owen. . . .

After the proposal was discussed for some time, for commencing a commu-
nity upon the small scale proposed by Mr. Thompson, instead of waiting for
the grand plan of Mr. Owen, we retired for dinner. When we came back our
friend Owen told us very solemnly, in the course of a long speech, that if we
were resolved to go into a community upon Mr. Thompson's plan, we must
make up our minds to dissolve our present marriage connections, and go into
it as single men and women. This was like the bursting of a bombshell in the
midst of us. One after another, who had been ardently anxious for this pro-

The Crisis, 1, 1 (April 14, 1832).

^nua.

178

Robert Owen

posal of a eommimity, began to express doubts, or to flatly declare that they
could never consent to it^ wMle others declared that the living in a commu-
nity need not interfere in any way with the marriage question. One poor
fellow, Mr. Petrie, an enthusiast in his way, quite agreed with his brother
Owen, and made a speech which many blushed to hear, and contended that
it would make no difference, as he and his wife were concerned, for she would

follow him anywhere However, nothing could have been better devised

than this speech of Mr. Owen to sow the seeds of doubt, and to cause the
scheme to be abortive , and when we retired Mr. Thompson expressed himself
very strongly against his conduct. I may add that the reporter of our pro-
ceedings, Mr. Wm. Carpenter, thought it wise not to embody this discussion
in our printed report.^®

Lovett also told of another experience with Owen that throws
more light on his character. It appears that Lovett was a member
of a committee responsible for issuing a circular inviting members
of Parliament to attend the meeting of the Co-operative Congress.
Owen did not think the circular adequate in expressing his views ;
so he added an amendment to it although the amendment had been
rejected by the committee. In this form the circular was printed,
much to the indignation of Lovett and his colleagues.

A deputation of the committee, including Lovett, called upon
Owen and asked for an explanation. Instead of meeting their
question, Owen declared that he had something very important
to communicate to them; whereupon he began reading the proof
from the first issue of the Crisis. After some time, while the wrath
of the deputation was rising, Lovett stopped Mm and asked what
had that to do with the business at hand. He further called atten-
tion to the autocratic nature of his conduct on the amendment.
^'With the greatest composure,” wrote Lovett, “he answered that
it evidently was despotic ; but as we, as well as the committee that
sent us, were all ignorant of his plans, and of the objects he had
in view, we must consent to be ruled by despots till we had acquired
sufficient knowledge to govern ourselves. After such vain-glorious
avowal, what could we say but to report — ^in the phraseology of
one of the deputation — ^that we had been flabbergasted by him?”^'"

In those early years of the ^thirties, Owen carried on his propa-
ganda with incredible zeal. Besides the cooperative congresses and

William Lovett, Life and Struggles of Wtlham Lovett . . . , I, 49, 51. Also
see William Tbompson, Fraotioal Lvreations for the Lstabluhment of Com-
munities.

50-51.

Into the Whirlwind

179

the work on the Crisis, he was holding meeting after meeting and
lecturing without pause.

Sometime in the fall of 1830 , Owen called a meeting in Free-
mason’s Tavern, London, “for the purpose of taking into consid-
eration the present wretched state of the public press of England ;
and for devising the best means of giving real knowledge to the
people.” Owen set out to agitate for the removal of the tax on
newspapers and pamphlets — a tax that bore heavily upon the
sources of information for the people.

During the meeting, Owen gave his opinion of some of the lead-
ing newspapers. He characterized The Times (London) as the
leading newspaper of the civilized world. But it was a commercial
establishment run for profit and an enterprise far too valuable
to be imperiled “by attacking superstition in its strong holds. . . .
It [The Times] is of use to the public in preventing some of the
grossest acts of oppression from the powerful to the weak, but it
cannot afford to advocate fundamental truths of the highest im-
portance to society, when those truths are in opposition to the no-
tions on which the superstition of Europe has been established
and is now maintained.”^®

It must be remembered that The Times had long since refused
Owen space to advance his views, unless he paid for it at the usual
rates. Then too, it had turned sharply critical of him and his plans.
Owen had every reason to believe that great newspaper was not
conducted for the purpose of advancing the truth as he saw it.

Owen also had something to say about the Morning Herald. He
thought that paper, while under the direction of “the late pro-
prietor, Mr. Thwaites, who lately died, was more free from the

influence of superstition than any other daily paper But since

the death of Mr. Thwaites it has become a mere party paper, in
support of the superstition of the country, without any of the
former impartial principles remaining which made it so valuable
to the pubHc.”"^®

Owen went on and struck at the Morning Chronicle, the Morn-
ing Post, and other daily newspapers. But in the end, he declared
that in spite of its defects the press was the very best means to
give the people useful knowledge. Therefore, in this particular

JSxaminer (London) , October 10, 1830, cited in '‘The Taxes on Knowledge,^'
Free Fnqmrer, 2d series. III, 42—44 (December 4, 1830).

Tbid,

180

Robert Owen

meeting an address was carried praying that the King remove the
fetters that bound the press.^

Joseph Hume, radical member of Parliament, wrote a letter to
Owen shortly after the meeting at Freemasons’ Tavern and ex-
pressed agreement with him on his advocacy of the removal of
the tax on paper, printing newspapers, and cheap publications.
But in the same letter he protested Owen’s declaration against
machinery :

I readily admit that the labour of some has been displaced by machinery,
but it is "very easy to prove that for one hand that has been drawn out of
employment four or more have found employment who otherwise never would
have had any.^

Hume thought the true cause for the distress was to be found
in monopolies, ''not forgetting the monopoly of Political power
which keeps up the most expensive government on cash and a heavy
taxation to support it.”^

In the years since Owen had brought forth his plans for the
regeneration of society, the Malthusians had never ceased firing
at Owen. And he continued to wince under their attacks. As late
as 1835, shortly after the death of Malthus, Owen wrote Henry
Brougham pointing to the influence Malthusian ideas appeared
to have over the government and Parliament :

Tbe chief obstacle to the formation of national arrangements to educate
and employ the people in a superior manner, is the error of the government
and legislature relative to the Malthusian doctrine of population. And per-
haps a more futile obstacle to the progress of knowledge and happiness has
seldom been raised with the same sneeess.^

In the same letter, Owen worked most zealously to convert
Brougham to his way of thinking on Malthus. He argued that
Malthus’ dictum that population increased faster than food sup-
ply might he admitted as an ‘‘abstract truth, hut a truth of no
practical utility” He went on to emphasize the importance of the
vast increase in production of food due to the advances made in
chemistry and knowledge of agriculture. Owen insisted that Mal-
thus was ignorant of the practical progress made in the production

October 10, 1830, in BoJ>ert Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manchester
Collection.

^ Letter in New Moral World, 1, 271-272 (June 20, 1835).

Into the Whirlwind 181

of food, and Hs ignorance had been the means of hardening the
hearts of the wealthy against reforms for the poor.^

Owen proved a good prophet. Food did not become the great
problem to England in the nineteenth century. The prairie lands
of North America yielded tremendous crops of wheat, more than
enough to feed aU the hungry, while England turned into a vast
workshop pouring out goods in exchange for the food.

Owen seldom missed an opportunity to attend meetings. He was
present at a session of the Working-Men’s Association held in
Lovett’s Coffee House on Gray’s Inn Road. The subject of the
discussion was “Will Free Trade reduce wages f’ Francis Place
and Lovett were both present and active in the debate with Owen.

Place made some notes at the time which have been preserved.
They are very significant as setting forth the three main cures
offered for the distress of the workingman. He wrote them down
as he listened to his opponents that Sunday morning and prepared
to make his own speech :

(Place.) No wages if no capital; certain number of capitalists; ditto
labourers. Increase of labourers ; none of capital ; wages fall. . . .

(Owen.) We can support aU Europe. Lose our time in discussing these
subjects. Question, is there knowledge enough among the working people to
put an end to all our institutions? Until equality none done. Equality more
easy than any other change. «

(Lovett.) People would contend for a better state if they had more political
power. . .

Place, it will be remembered, first met Owen in 1813 when Owen
came to London to publish his essays and sought help of that astute
tailor. From that time, he watched Owen’s career with many shak-
ings of the head; yet he was always friendly to Owen. The two
men stood for the same principles, the same ideals : both wanted
a better day for the working classes. But they were poles apart
in their methods. Place was hardheaded and practical; Owen,
vague and almost mystical at times.

In one place in his notes, Place made the following entry rela-
tive to Owen :

Jauuary, 1836. Mr. Oweu tbis day bas assured me, in tbe presence of more
than thirty other persons, that within six months the whole state and condi-

^ Place CoUectioifij cited by Graham Wallas, Life of Francis Place, pp.
360-361.

182 Bolert Owen

tion of society in Great Britain will be changed, and all Ms views will be
carried into effect.^®

How strange this language must have seemed to Place. Surely,
he must have decided that Owen had become a gentle lunatic.

While Owen had been moving up and down the land talking
cooperative communities, Francis Place had been weaving snares
for the Tory government opposed to the Eeform Bill. Owen
thought politics and political action as the sum of all futilities ;
Place, in his turn, looked upon cooperative communities as being
outside the pale of common sense.

The cooperative societies, however, grew very rapidly. There
were probably four or five hundred societies in existence at the
time of the Third Co-operative Congress. But Owen was not con-
tent to let this movement take a natural course. He well might
have thrown all his energies into the furtherance of cooperative
buying and selling and left communism, marriage, and religion
to others. But Owen belonged to the cult of ^^all or nothing.” So-
ciety must be completely changed at once. Yet he had moments
when he descended from his Olympian heights. Such a moment
came to him when he played with the idea of labor exchanges.

lUd.

CHAPTER XVII

LABOE POE LABOE

AS THE working classes turned toward cooperative buying and

/Jk selling, they also engaged in a certain amount of codpera-
JL tive production. Naturally their ventures in this direction
were much more precarious than the mere retailing of goods to
members But as organizations of workers banded together for
mutual aid found themselves confronted with unemployment, they
sought for a way to use their trades at a profit. They made shoes,
coats, and furniture and even built houses ; and then they opened
bazaars to sell their wares to the public or to exchange them for
goods they needed.

Early in 1830 the British Association for Promoting Co-opera-
tive Knowledge opened an exchange bazaar in London. William
Lovett in his autobiography tells of the launching of this enter-
prise and his connection with it.^ This bazaar did not issue labor
notes but sold goods that were sent to it from cooperative societies,
where they were manufactured by the unemployed.

In the next few months, many other bazaars were opened, and
for a time it looked as if the working people had at length solved
their distribution problem. Owen sensed the opportunity of bring-
ing about the millennium speedily and started to work on his own
bazaar with the added feature of the “labour notes” as a medium
of exchange. But before he was ready, William King, one-time
editor of the Brighton Go-operator, started a bazaar at Gothic
Hall, New Road.^ Some idea of this exchange had been given by
Robert Dale Owen :

Yesterday we went to visit an establishment recently formed for the pur-
pose of facilitating exchanges of labor among the producing classes, without
the intervention of money. It was established at the Grothie Hall, Hew
Eoad, about six weeks ago, is on a very simple principle; and, as I was much
pleased with it and think it well worthy of imitation and likely to succeed
in a business point of view, I will give you a sketch of what I learned from
Mr. King, the person who, with his daughter, conducts it.

They consider themselves necessitated, for the present, to value articles
sent into them nearly according to their monied value in the market.

^ See Life and Struggles of William Lovett, I, 43-44.

2 See Ihid., 47.

[ 183 ]

184 :

Boiert Owen

The course pursued is this. When any article is first deposited in the
bazaar, the depositor is requested to mark on it his estimate of its monied
value. There is a managing committee of tradesmen, who meet two or three
times a week, and to whom, at their first meeting, the articles so deposited
and valued are submitted. If they think them useful and saleable and not
too highly valued, labor notes to the amount are issued. As an average, five
shillings (about a dollar and a quarter) is assumed as the value of a day’s
labor of ten hours; being sixpence an hour. The labor notes are drawn in
accordance with this general standard, thus • Five. Equal to two shillings and
sixpence.

This entitles the bearer to any articles to be found in the Bazaar, to the
value two and sixpence. The five, for the present, rather points to a principle
hereafter to be carried out, according to which all articles should be valued
by the hours of labor necessary to produce them (not by dollars and cents)
than to the 'present practice of the bazaar: for articles are not yet valued
there on the principle of labor for equal labor. The reason is obvious. If they
were, all whose labor was estimated the lowest would fi.ock thither, and all
whose labor was valued at all above the lowest would keep aloof; except in
the ease of those who would choose, for the sake of principle, to make a daily
recurring pecuniary sacrifice. And alas! how small — how very small a pro-
portion of society are these!®

He wrote of a poor woman who came into the bazaar with ten
or twenty dozen toothbrushes, which she had been attempting to
peddle through the streets at two shillings a dozen. She was trying
to earn a little money for furnitnre.> At the bazaar she was given
three shillings a dozen and was paid in labor notes, which she
promptly turned in again for some articles of furniture she found
in the place.

Robert Dale explained in the letter that the proprietor's share
for running the business was five per cent. Three and one-third
per cent went to pay rent and taxes, thus making a total of eight
and one-third per cent as the cost of conducting the enterprise.

The proprietor, King, took pains to give Robert Owen credit
for the idea and testified to his devotion by having a portrait of
Owen hung up in the bazaar where all might behold it.'^

Robert Dale wrote of labor notes being used in other bazaars
but not on a basis of 'Tabor for equal labor " We know that his
father had urged the committee in charge of the Greville Street
bazaar to follow the labor note idea, but the committee refused.

® Robert Bale Owen, “Letters from tbe Transatlantic,’^ Free Fnauirer, 2d
series, lY, 365-366 (September 8, 1832).

* See lua.

Laior for Labor 185

It did, however, issue exchangeable receipts against the goods de-
posited ; these men too saw the difficulties in fixing a fair average
value for an hour’s labor of different workmen possessed of varied
degrees of skill.®

Meantime, Owen hurried forward his plans for opening his own
labor exchange. Already he had the background of Josiah War-
ren’s Time Store in Cincinnati, and he was also driven on by the
general agitation for currency reform. Ever since the government
had resumed specie payments by the act of 1819, the currency
tinkers had been busy. Owen joined a great crowd who condemned
the government’s policy. Not only did he do this, but he advanced
some ideas of a revolutionary nature.

At this point it might be well to glance briefly at some of Owen’s
economic theories, especially those relating to money and the place
of labor in the economic order. These theories, it win be recalled,
were clearly laid down in his “Eeport to the County of Lanark”
in 1820. In this work Owen argued that the use of gold and silver
as money was bad. The only sound and fair measure of value to
him was human labor, because human labor properly directed was
the source of aU wealth.®

The cause of the distress which the country was suffering from,
according to Owen, was due to the inability of the masses to buy
the goods they could produce with such profusion. The remedy
was to ‘Tet prosperity loose on the country” by substituting labor
notes for the currency then in use.’" Owen proposed that average
human labor be the unit of value. He meant by average neither
the labor of the fastest nor the slowest but of the median worker.
He thought human labor might be measured in much the same
way as horsepower is the unit used to measure mechanical energy.

In attacking gold and silver as artificial mediums of exchange,
he did not see that they were real values in themselves and not
merely elements that men had arbitrarily fixed upon as money.
Neither did Owen explain how the factors other than labor in
producing a given article were to be compensated. Interest, on
the capital invested in making goods, and management seemed to

® See tlie British Co-op'erator, cited by Frank Podmore, Bohm Owen,
II 404.

« See Robert Owen, '^Report to the County of Lanark . . . Life, by Robert
Owen, lA, 263-310 (Appendix S).

^ See Ibid.

186

Eohert Owen

have been ignored. No donbt Owen was thinking of individnal
workmen making utilities in their own shops with their own hands
and not goods produced in factories with large capital invested
and a considerable staff of managers. He certainly did not see
the difficulty of separating the reward going to the laborer from
the other factors in production if his scheme were to be adopted
In justice to Owen it must be said that he did not insist, as did
some who subscribed to the theory that labor produced all wealth,
that the worker should receive the full product of labor ; but he
should receive an average of sixpence an hour. And Owen hit upon
this as the unit in his labor exchange. All articles were to be valued
in terms of labor hours.

But it must not be assumed that Owen valued all labor at the
same price. He recognized that workmen had varied degrees of
skill and should be rewarded accordingly. When an article was
brought into the exchange, the appraisers placed upon it a price
expressed in pounds, shillings, and pence. It would naturally be
the market price as nearly as they could determine. The next step
was to divide the price thus fixed by sixpence — ^that being the time-
standard rate an hour. If the article were valued at thirty shillings,
the workman would receive a labor note stamped ^Tive Hours.”

Owen’s plans for a labor exchange were given an unusual impetus
by the offer of some buildings on Gray’s Inn Boad by a disciple,
WiUiam Bromley. The premises were unusually well adapted for
the showing of goods, but the business arrangements made between
Owen and Bromley were vague beyond belief. The amount to be
paid as rent was apparently not fixed, but provisions were made
for buying the premises by 1832 or renting them at a reasonable
figure. Owen must have thought that Bromley should donate the
place or make the rent very nominal. In any case, trouble arose
between the two men, leading to disastrous consequences for the
exchange.

On the eve of opening this new experiment of Owen’s, his son,
Robert Dale, wrote from London :

My father's Bazaar at tlie large estatlishment I have already described
to you in Gray^s Inn Eoad, is to be opened next Monday; and very great
expectations are formed of the results to be obtained. My father — ^you know
his sanguine temper — ^predicts as its immediate and necessary consequence,
a complete revolution in the monied system, and ultimately in the social as

187

Labor for Labor

well as commercial institutions of this country. I think the working classes
may be essentially benefitted by it, if it be properly conducted; and that
is enough to render it deserving of the best wishes and most active exertions
of every friend of humanity.®

On Monday, September 17, 1832, the National Equitable Labour
Exchange opened with great enthusiasm. Tailors marched in with
stacks of coats, some fits but many misfits ; shoemakers clattered
in bearing stiff new boots on their backs; cabinetmakers carted up
to the exchange many chests of drawers smelling of new coats of
varnish; weavers staggered up to the tables with bolts of serges
and worsteds. All clamored for the bright new labor notes. So
great was the press of depositors that the governors found it neces-
sary to close down on Thursday for the rest of the week.

In the next few weeks the exchange did an enormous business
In the midst of the enthusiasm and excitement over what seemed
the certain success of the enterprise, a great meeting was held at
the Institution. The Crisis reported a huge crowd packed in the
auditorium with ^^the heat very oppressive. . . The meeting had
been called to consider “the increasingly distressed state of the
nonproductive industrious classes, and to devise efficient means
for their permanent relief.” At least this was the announced
purpose; but the assembly took on the character of a victory
celebration.

As might be expected, Owen spoke. He announced to his excited
hearers that a new system of business had been born. The labor
exchanges were to carry everything before them, and the shop-
keepers were to be left without means of support. Something must
be done to make them real producers of wealth. Indeed, the “Equi-
table Labour Exchanges, were the bridge over which society would
safely pass out of its present condition, to another and a better.”®

Owen wound up his speech of jubilation with a declaration
that no government in the world could stop the progress of labor
exchanges. And then with an oratorical flourish that called out
prolonged cheers, he added : “Government must come to us.

Owen’s bazaar on Gray’s Inn Road went on through the fall of

« Robert Dale Owen, "‘Letters from the Transatlantic,’^ Free Fnquirer, 2d

series, V, 17-18 (November 10, 1832). ^

^ “Public Meeting at the Institution of the Industrious Classes, Gray s-lnn-
Road,” The Crisis, 1, 119 (September 29, 1832).

188

Robert Owen

1832 doing sncli a business as to silence all doubters. The Crisis
reported 445,501 labor hours as being deposited and 376,166 hours
exchanged in the period from September 3 to December 29, 1832."^

Owen was a very busy man making speeches, writing, and or-
ganizing. His son, who was with him at this time, wrote on October
21, 1832 :

My father had urged me, in the strongest terms, to remain during the winter
in London. I saw that he had so much business on his hands that it was impos-
sible even for his activity to get through it. He frequently rose at four o^clock,
and remained at his institution until ten at night. The business there contin-
ually increased, and the usual dfaily amount of exchanges was between $500
and $700. The lecture rooms were crowded to overflowing. In a word, the har-
vest was great and the laborers were few.^

In the next few months, labor exchanges swept the country.
Owen’s exchange was merely one of many. A great meeting was
held in Beardsworth’s Eepository outside of London. It was one
of those meetings so frequent in the years when Owen’s propaganda
was operating at full blast. According to the Crises, ten thousand
people were assembled. Owen on this occasion made a speech that
had the aroma of demagogy. After calling upon the working classes
to sink their differences and join in making the exchanges a success,
he had something to say about the privileged class •

He [Owen] now called upon the wealthy classes to come forward and assist
in extricating the producers of their wealth from the unremitted poverty by
which they were surrounded. If they would do this, their present incomes
would be secured to them for the remainder of their lives, and not a particle
of their existing wealth would be touched. But if they were determined, self-
ishly and ignorantly to hold back, then he would say, let them look to them-
selves (great applause). If they were determined to oppose the righteous cause
of the industrious classes, then let them work for themselves ; let them see what
they could do with their land and capital to save themselves from starvation
(vehement cheering.) Let the producers of wealth, therefore, be calm, but firm,
for their cause would be sure to triumph. Let them be as wise as serpents, but
as harmless as doves (cheers).

Then Owen held up a labor note, exclaiming : ‘‘TMs is the new
money which we propose to make ; it is peculiarly the money of
the industrious classes.”"^*

See the Crisis, II, 7 (January 12, 1833),

Bobert Bale Owen, loc, cit,, pp. 57-58 (December 15, 1832).

The Crisis, 1, 157 (December 8, 1832).

Labor for Labor

189

But disaster was just around the corner. Bromley, the owner
of Owen^s premises, had long been dissatisfied with the way Owen
was treating him. When he saw the bazaar doing such a fine busi-
ness, he felt that he too should share in the prosperity, especially
when he found himself in need of money.

It appears that the Institution had paid Bromley £160 ground
rent for the premises, and Owen had given him £700 for the fix-
tures. But Bromley demanded that the rent be fixed at £1,400 for
the buildings and £320 for the ground effective from January 1,
1833. Owen thought his figures too high. There was much letter
writing on Bromley^s part, but in the end Owen decided to move.

The break with Bromley came after a year of trouble between
Bromley and Owen. In June of 1832, Bromley wrote a letter to
Owen bitterly reproaching him for having suggested that he had
tampered with Owen’s appraiser.^* It is evident that a “Mr. Fox,”
Owen’s appraiser, had fixed the price of the premises too high to
please Owen, and he had accused Bromley of influencing Fox.
After Owen and the Institution had quit the place, Bromley wrote
a letter to William Pare, one of Owen’s disciples, saying Owen had
been unjust and dishonest and that he had finally been compelled
to turn out “Mr. Owen and his worthless scamps.’”^

The quarrel and the necessity of a sudden move to new quarters
was a hard blow for the exchange. The inventory taken sometime
after the transfer showed a great loss of goods, probably by theft,
and the business now took on a less healthy tone.

By 1834 the exchanges in England were fast fading out of the
picture. Owen’s bazaar, after suffering two removals and many
changes of management, was in serious distress. S. Austin, onetime
secretary of the bazaar and Owen’s right-hand man, wrote to Owen
on June 7, 1834, that the exchange was £500 in debt and that it
would be well to wind up the whole concern as soon as possible.^®
There is little else to record on the labor exchanges, except to
attempt an explanation of their failure. Lovett, who was connected
with Owen’s bazaar, wrote in his Life that the notes began to depre-
ciate and “useful articles soon ceased to be deposited.” He also

See letter of William Bromley to Bobert Owen, June 13, 1832, in Moliert
Owen CoTrespondence, MSS, Manchester Collection. ^ ^ ^ ,

See letter of William Bromley to William Bare, July 3, 1833, in BooeH
Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manchester CoUeetion.
i«In Bolert Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manchester Collection.

190

Bobert Owen

attributed their failure to religious differences, the disinclination
of wives to buy at a place where the selection of goods was small
and the adventure of shopping absent, and then too the officers of
the exchange were not legally responsible for any dishonest prac-
tices they might use against the members of the exchange."^^

These causes for failure advanced by Lovett are important but
do not seem fundamental. In a more general sense, the exchanges
failed because they represented a too decided break with accus-
tomed ways of carrying on the economic life. The cooperative move-
ment, in so far as it meant throwing over the profit system, failed ;
but when it developed into a dividend-paying joint-stock enter-
prise with all the characteristics of the growing tendency in busi-
ness organization, it moved to ever fresh triumphs.

While experiments in cooperation and labor exchanges were
being pushed, Owen glimpsed a new opportunity to advance his
cause on a larger scale. The working class, disillusioned by the re-
sults of the Eef orm Bill and rendered more desperate by the con-
tinued economic distress, turned to trade-unions for relief. Owen
now sought to direct these trade-unions toward his way of life.

See William Lovett, The Life and Struggles of William Lovett . . , , I, 44.

CHAPTER XYIII

THE GRAND NATIONAL

W HILE ORBiSTON Sank oiit of si^kt and the labor exchanges
passed into bankruptcy, the working classes organized
and marched. They marched and shouted with the middle
class for the passage of the Reform Bill.

William Lovett, Henry Hetherington, Watson, and many others
of their leaders had once sat at the feet of Owen. Time, however,
shook their faith in his city of the parallelograms ; but from a thou-
sand rostrums they voiced his criticism of capitalistic society. They
proclaimed his message of a new day for the workers when self-help
and education would make them free. In those years of agitation
no resolution was passed and no set of principles was adopted that
did not bear the marks of his teaching.

In London, in Manchester, in Birmingham, and in the cities of
the north, political unions and trade-unions were formed. Indeed,
it was a time when working-class activities were at high tide. Owen
marked this fervor for organization and sought to bend it to his
own ends. It is true that he had no interest in parliamentary re-
form, but he might use the trade-unions to realize his dreams of an
England of communities.

While he was pouring forth his gospel of cooperation at his
Gray's Inn Institution, James Bronterre O'Brien of Chartist fame
wrote Owen a letter begging him to model the Gray's Inn Institu-
tion after the Birmingham Political Union. But at the same time
he confessed his conviction that the working class would find the
Reform Bill a delusion. “If I mistake not,” he added, “your ideas
and my own are the same, or nearly so.”^

The Birmingham Political Union was organized by Thomas Att-
wood in a great meeting on January 25, 1830, when 20,000 persons
assembled to hear him explain how the middle class and the work-
ing class were to combine for parliamentary reform. This organi-
zation came to be the model for similar combinations in every large
city in the kingdom.

One of the most conspicuous of the working-class organizations
was the London National Union of the Working Classes. It was
^ May 27, 1832, in Bobert Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manchester Collection.

[ 191 ]

192

Boberi Owen

founded in 1831 and became the organkiation out of which, sprang
Chartism. The National Union grew out of the British Union for
the Diffusion of Co-operative Knowledge. Its leaders were William
Lovett, Henry Hetherington, James Watson, and a man by the
name of Cleave, all imbued with Owenite principles plus a desire
for political action. The Union met at a place in London called the
Eotunda, near the Blackfriars Bridge, and possessed a militant
paper entitled the Poor Mam/s Guardian published by Hethering-
ton in defiance of the government tax.

Months of agitation followed ; the Tories, fearful of revolution,
gave way, and the Eeform Bill, so long prayed for, passed into law.
The working classes soon found they had been duped. The people
of property belonging to the newly enfranchised middle class had
no mind to let the proletariat into the sanctuary of lawmaking.
And so the working classes turned to trade-unions and Chartism
for a way to gain their ends.

Owen now stepped forward to lead those who saw the futility
of political action. But when some among the leaders of labor, espe-
cially William Benbow, proposed a general strike to enforce their
demands for political representation, Owen balked. He never at
any time counseled any but peaceful means for the attainment
of his ends.

The feeling of resentment against the middle class was intensi-
fied by the New Poor Law enacted in 1832 — a law which made
poverty something akin to a crime and plainly showed the effects
of Malthus and his essay.

Before the passage of the Eeform Bill, the operative builders,
suffering from low wages and believing themselves the victims of
middlemen, turned to cooperation. They held a congress in Man-
chester during the last week of September, 1831, and adopted a
plan for labor exchanges and cooperative societies,^ They were
led by James Morrison and James E. Smith. Morrison became
editor of the Pioneer, a weekly journal devoted to the cause of the
builders. His philosophy was distinctly syndicalistic and savored
strongly of the ‘^class war.” Smith followed him closely.

The next step in the growing organization of labor was the con-
gress of October, 1833, in London, when delegates of cooperative
societies and labor unions met. On the evening before the congress

® See tlie Orisis, III, 44 (October 12, 1833).

The Grand N ational 193

assembled, on October 6, 1833, Owen addressed a mass meeting
held at Charlotte Street :

I now give yon a short outline of the great changes which are in contempla-
tion and which shaH come suddenly upon Society, like a thief in the- night. . . .
We have long since discovered that as long as Master contends with Master no
improvement, either for man or master, will be possible : there is no other alter-
native, therefore, but national companies for every trade . . . All trades shall
first form associations or parochial lodges to consist of a convenient number
for carrying on the business.®

Here Owen was sketching a scheme for a mighty network of co-
operatives with a Grand National Council at the top. But he was
moving far too fast for his time, as he was soon to find out.

The congress met and deliberated behind closed doors. Just what
happened can only be conjectured from later events. Probably the
delegates agreed to go home and organize the workers into unions
with the aim of acting independently of the employing class. They
were, no doubt, following the main trend of Owen^s philosophy of
cooperation in production and distribution. In any case, during
the next few months unions sprang up by magic, while the prop-
ertied classes in desperation turned to the government for help.

As the union membership mounted to a figure not far from one
million, the spirit of class conflict took possession of the workers
everywhere in Britain. Their orators now used such terms as the
class war, strikes, proletariat, bourgeoisie, and solidarity — all the
words in the vocabulary of modem labor leaders.

Owen grew alarmed. Class warfare had no place in his scheme
of redemption. In the pages of the Crisis, he proclaimed that capital
was also a producer and deserved friendly nods from the workers.^
He further sought to head off the movement toward syndicalism by
founding a new society, the National Kegeneration Society, devoted
to securing the eight-hour day by March 1, 1834. This great inno-
vation was to be gained by the joint action of employers and em-
ployees. The more radical trade-unionists talked about the general
strike as means of attaining the same end.

In dragging this society upon the already crowded stage of labor
organization, Owen sought the assistance of Richard Oastler, who
was one of a little group struggling to put a ten-hour law upon the

Wbid,!!!, 42-43 (October 12, 1833).

December 7, 1833, and January 11, 1834.

194

Eohert Owen

statute book. Oastler was not minded to abandon Ms measure for
an eigbt-liour bill, especially when the people supporting him ex-
pected Mm to carry on. In a letter to Owen he made it clear that
he would not lend his support to the Eegeneration Society and its
eight-hour platform unless there was public pressure to justify
him. He declared, however, that he would not argue against eight
hours.®

Opposition to Owen’s eight-hour day came from the workers
themselves. A committee of the Sheffield Branch of the Eegenera-
tion Society addressed a memorial to Owen protesting that his
advocacy of the corn laws® and the eight-hour day would mean the
loss of markets to their rivals in trade who were not bread taxed
and who w^orked longer hours. The opening lines of the memorial
are interesting because they show how much Owen won the love
of people even though they disagreed with him :

Kind And Dear Sir :

You came among us — a rich, man among the poor — and did not call us
labble. This was a phenomenon new to us. There was no sneer on your lips, no
covert scorn in the tone of your voice ,* you met us as a fortunate brother ought
to meet his affectionate but suffering brethern.'^

The memorial was signed hy five members of the committee :
Ebenezer Elliot, Joseph Oddy Hustler, James Somerset, Thomas
Sheldon, and Thomas James Codwallader.

The Times in an editorial in its issue of J anuary 28, 1834, took
a rap at Owen for some of his economic views and praised the five
men of Sheffield. This drew Owen’s fire, and he wrote a protesting
letter to the paper complaining that he was being abused The
Times replied at once :

We publish a letter from Mr. Owen. We are sorry he is losing his temper
because he cannot persuade us to adopt his opinions He says that we abuse
him; we deny it. We have never spoken of him except in terms of kindness. We
think him a very benevolent but a very wrong-headed man. What does he mean

® November 22, 1833, in Bohert Owen Correspondencej MSS, Manchester
Collection,

^ Strangely enough, while Owen appeared to have been opposed to the repeal
of the corn laws, yet we find in his letter to 0. Babbage, written approximately
at the same time as the Sheffield memorial, a request that Babbage join him
in an anti-eorn-law association. It is possible, however, that this association
was meant to be an anti-eorn-law repeal association Owen^s letter to Babbage
was voritten January 23, 1834, and is in the Correspondence of C, Bablage, MSS.

The Times (London), January 24, 1834.

The Gra7id National 195

bj liis talk of resorting to some other means of vindicating himself less pleasant
to us than his letters! Does he think his letters pleasant?®

While the year 1833 had been a year of triumph for Owen, it
had also brought its penalties. As he grew more and more promi-
nent, he drew down upon himself increased opposition And being
of flesh and blood, he grew arrogant and dictatorial at times. The
gentle Mr, Owen became the high and mighty one who treated those
opposed to him as ignorant children.

As Owen looked around, he saw Morrison and Smith as the head
and front of the party advocating direct action. With a swift-
ness and directness not characteristic of him, he brought enough
pressure to bear to secure the dismissal of Morrison from the Pio-
neer and Smith from the Crisis, In his persistent desire for legal
and peaceful methods, Owen was supported by J ames Bronterre
O’Brien. But the two were far apart. O’Brien wanted the workers
to gain political power by agitating for universal suffrage, while
Owen insisted upon cooperative self-governing communities.

The swelling act in the drama of working-class protest came in
1834 with the rise of the Grand National Consolidated Trade
Union. The platform adopted by the organization shows in no un-
certain way the influence of Owen. In case of strikes or turnouts,
the members were to be employed on land bought by the unions.
Thus they could make themselves self-supporting. Workshops were
also to be provided where the men unemployed could be put at
productive labor. It was recommended that each lodge establish
depots for provisions and articles in general domestic use in order
to provide commodities at a little above wholesale prices."

But it was all very futile— this grand attempt at organizing
labor on a national scale. Lockouts and strikes exhausted the treas-
ury of the unions. Then too, officers of the Grand National em-
bezzled the funds of the union. The funds of trade-unions were
not protected by law. To make the position of the union still more
hazardous, Owen, Morrison, and Smith were no longer able to work
together. Though Owen managed to throw them out of the labor
movement, the lack of harmony within and the all too numerous
enemies from without brought the organization to the verge of dis-
solution by the summer of 1834.

® January 29, 18S4.

^ See Max Beer, Ristory of British Soddlism, 1 342.

196

Boiert Owen

Tlie collapse of the Grand National was hastened by the swift
and cruel blow struck by the government earlier in the year. The
government rolled down upon the unions with the conviction of
six Dorchester laborers for swearing and administering oaths con-
trary to law. They were members of a lodge of the Friendly Society
of Agricultural Labourers, a union affiliated with Grand National.
They were duly tried, found guilty, and sentenced to transporta-
tion for seven years — a sentence entirely out of line with British
traditions. But the governing class in England was frightened, and
it behaved accordingly.

Owen was thoroughly aroused and marched off at once to see
Melbourne, the Home Secretary, but without result. Then Owen
and the trade-unionists organized a monster protest movement
that was to take the form of a procession bearing a petition to the
Home Secretary's office. Melbourne heard of this and wrote at once
to Owen warning him of the dangers of bloodshed in such a move."^^
Lord Melbourne throughout his public career was inclined to be
friendly and tolerant toward Owen, but he was firm at this time
in his resolve not to receive any petition if presented by a great
body of men and told Owen as much in an interview before the
procession marched.

A day or two before the mass protest was held, Owen received a
letter from one of his supporters warning him against marching.
^^They will crucify you,” he wrote. But neither this warning nor
Melbourne’s deterred Owen. He marched on the appointed day,
April 21, 1834, at the head of 30,000 men. The government, thor-
oughly frightened, ordered out several regiments of troops; but
there was no violence. Melbourne kept his word, however, and re-
fused to receive the petition at this time. Later he did receive it
but under his own terms and without taking any action.

Months later Owen was still persisting in his efforts to secure a
pardon for the six convicted men. When Goulbum, then Home
Secretary, refused to ask the Eling to pardon them, Owen, through
the Association of the Working Class and Others, sent a memorial
to William IV. The memorial contained some very significant pas-
sages. It pointed out that the existing system of government could
be supported only by encouraging associations for mutual aid
among the producers of wealth. And it stated that the nonpro-

April 2, 1834,iii JKoi&ert Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manchester CoUeetion.

The Grand National

197

dueers of wealth were losing their power, while producers were
gaming in power. Then finally the memorial declared it an unsound
policy for the nonproducers not to remit the sentence after they
had shown their power

In the meantime, Owen determined to put the trade-union moye-
ment on a plane more in keeping with his ideas. It was at this stage
that he terminated the existence of the Crisis in August of 1834
and founded in its place the New Moral WorldN And at the same
time he called another meeting of delegates of the Grand National
Owen told them that they must change their tactics. Opposition
from the government and employers made it imperative they take
a milder line and also that they take a new name : The British
and Foreign Consolidated Association of Industry, Humanity,
and Knowledge. With such a name and a policy of concilation,
they announced to the propertied classes the passing of militant
unionism.^

In the last number of the Crisis, Owen, referring to the meeting,
broke out into language prophetic and even mystical :

The great crisis of human nature will be this week passed. The system under
which man has hitherto lived dies a natural death and another assumes its
place. The accursed system of the old world of ignorance, of poverty, of op-
pression, of fear, of crime, and of misery, this week, this memorable week in
the annals of man^s history, dies forever. The delegates of the British and
Foreign Association of Industry and Knowledge, called especially from all
parts of the kingdom to their great council, held, during the last sixteen days
in the metropolis of the most civilized nation of the earth, to consider in
what manner the awful Crisis in which industry and knowledge were in-
volved, should terminate, have, by their wisdom and firmness, now declared
unanimously to all people, that the change from this Pandemonium of wicked-
ness and lies shall not be by violence or by fraud, nor yet by any of the acts or
weapons of the expiring old worlds but that it shall be through a great moral
revolution of the human mind, directed solely by truth, by chanty, and by
kindness.^*

On the passing of the Crisis, he became still more prophetic :

Men of aU nations and colours, rejoice with us in this great ^vent, for certain
deliverance, from all human wickedness and folly is near at hand I Kegret not

See copy of the ^^Memorial to William lY by The Association of Working
Classes and Others,” June 23, 1835, in Bohert Owen Correspondence, MSS,
Manchester Collection.

^ See the Crisis, lY, 154 (August 23, 1834).

IS See Ibid., 153 (August 23, 1834).

Ibid., 154 (August 23, 1834).

198

Robert Owen

that this Cnsts now expires, for it dies at its appointed period, to be succeeded
by the New Moral World, in which truth, industry, and knowledge will for
ever reign triumphant. For truth is alone Virtue and Religion.^®

Owen’s messiahship had by this time taken on a definitely mysti-
cal tone. Henceforth his work was to be almost entirely ethical. No
more was he to concern himself with such mechanisms as trade-
nnions and labor exchanges.
md.

CHAPTER XIX

THE MAERIAGES OE THE PRIESTHOOD

T he moving events of tiie years wlien Ovt^en was in tlie thick
of the trade-unionist struggle were not to his liking. He made
but a feeble figure as a leader of a militant movementj for his
heart was not in it. Only because he hoped to convert the mass of
labor to his way of life did he descend at all into the turmoil of labor
politics. ThereforCj when the Grand National broke down under
the attacks of the public and the government, Owen gathered a few
disciples about him and retired from the scene.

Owen now busied himself writing the first chapters of his social
bible, the Book of the New Moral World, He also entered into a
season of journeyings through the length and breadth of Britain
with an occasional trip to the Continent and the United States. He
witnessed the steady growth of cooperation, but it was not the co-
operation he had preached, where buying and selling were to be no
more. It was rather retailing carried on by consumers’ societies
for the purpose of furnishing members with household goods at a
reduced price.

He watched the rising tide of Chartism with utter disapproval :

When the people really awake to a consideration of their situation, they will
see that empty talk is a feeble weapon, when employed against the strong
phalanx of property, political, moral, and social influence; and that, in order
to conquer, they must bring into the field analagous forces. Our principles alone
supply these — ^universal suffrage will never give us communities ; communities
alone can give us universal suffrage ; they must precede, not follow its attain-
ment.^

But many of his onetime followers thought otherwise. Lovett,
Hetherington, Watson, and Bronterre O’Brien now threw them-
selves into the Chartist agitation and thereby forsook the gentle
way. ‘‘Owenism,” or socialism, lived on but not as a movement of
the masses. It came to have the character of a religion with Owen
as the master and a band of disciples to go out into cities and
towns to bring in the converts.

In all of Owen’s activities with cooperatives, labor exchanges,
and trade-unions, it may appear that he had been blown around

1 Universal Suffrage Necessary to- the Establishment or Perpetuity of
Communities?” New Moral Worldj IV, 329—330 (August 11, 1838).

[ 199 ]

200

Boberi Owen

by the winds of circnmstanee. But in reality, he probably looked
upon all of these schemes as mere vehicles to bring him to the high-
road of his ultimate ideal. The best illustration of this is given in
his speech to the Friends of Truth in Paisley, when he laid down his
whole ethical philosophy in a way which makes clear that all he
had undertaken by way of reforms were only means to an end.
In all probability, however, he did not see that end until sometime
after the “Keport to the County of Lanark.’’ He told the people of
Paisley :

When I reflected — in my early years, — upon the gross ignorance of the whole
race of man, which produced the wars, massacres, falsehood, deception, poverty,
and all the endless crimes which have hitherto afflicted and brutalised all the
nations of the earth, upon the various religions which have divided, and which
yet divide man from man over the world, filling the minds of all with errors
of the imagiaation which perplex and confound the rational faculties of all;
and when lastly I reflected upon the general spirit of the age, to buy cheap
and sell dear, which injurious spirit is now rapidly forwarded among the popu-
lations of all countries, and destroying in hud the germs of all the superior
feelings of human nature, I at first almost despaired of discovering prinieples
sufficiently powerful to control and overcome the evils which ignorance had
thus introduced, and which the overheated and deranged imaginations of men
yet maintain in opposition to their highest and best interest. But further ob-
servation of human nature, and deeper reflection, forced upon me an over-
whelming and most cheering conviction, that man might yet be relieved from
his errors, and that it was possible to teach him truth for his good, instead of
error for his misery.

Being enabled, not certainly by any power of my creating, to make this
discovery, I was forced to pursue it, until another system for the government
of man became quite familiar to me, a system derived from the laws of nature,
and which, when adopted, must insure excellence and happiness to the human
race.

This system is derived solely from God, or that Tower which compels us to
have our thoughts and our feelings; it is in accordance with all nature, and
can produce good only, through all the future generations of man. It therefore
now defies all the prejudices which ignorance has implanted in man through
all the ages which have passed; it now defies all that man can do against it.

I am compelled to know that this system is founded on an immoveable rock;
that its walls are of adamant, and that the shafts which class, or sect, or party,
may hurl against it, will recoil upon the assailants and utterly destroy them.

The infant school, the shortening the hours of labour in manufactories, the
poor colonies in Holland, the national system of education in Prussia, the
present cordial national union between the British and North American Gov-
ernments, all of which I have been permitted to be the instrument to effect,
are merely preliminary measures put forth preparatory to the great change.

The Marriages of the Priesthood 201

wMeli that Power which governs the universe had evidently destined, shall take
place at this period of human affairs ; a change which will enable the popula-
tion of this and of all other countries to emancipate themselves from the physi-
cal and mental slavery in which all, from the greatest to the least, are now fast
spell-bound in chains of the imagination.

It is, indeed, most gratifying to me to observe the rapid progress which the
public mind in all countries is now making towards this new life, this new mode
of human existence, in which all shall be essentially benefitted, and in vrhich
not one will be injured.®

The great change that was to come “like a thief in the night’’
could be effected only by education, and education came to mean
for Owen teaching men to live together in brotherly love. The com-
munity was to be a “beloved community” purged of all self-seeking
The parallelograms so often ridiculed by his critics were not to be
mere barracks for housing regimented people, but they were to be
communities of opportunity for individuals to live freed from the
stupidities of the competitive life.

It will be remembered that Owen had never wavered since he
made the memorable pronouncement against private property,
religions, and marriage. And now that he was free of labor ex-
changes and trade-unions, he turned to lay bare the last-named in
the trinity of evils.

In the closing months of 1834, the New Moral World devoted
page after page to Owen’s lectures on marriage given at the Insti-
tution on Charlotte Street. He exposed the iniquities of the priest-
hood and lectured on the evils of marriage as it was forced upon
unhappy couples by the Church. These lectures seemed to arouse
the clergy even more than his earlier attacks upon religions. It is
not strange that this was so, because Owen gave the priesthood aU
the blame for the evils of the marriage system. Nothing could
equal the supreme naivete and boldness with which he approached
the problem, but it must be remembered that no problem daunted
him. However, the whole position of marriage and divorce in the
England of Owen’s day left much to be desired.

At the time Owen attacked the institution of marriage in Eng-
land, the Church of England, except in the cases of Jews and
Quakers, held a monopoly of the marriage sacrament. Civil mar-
riages had not yet come to be. Divorce was a recourse open only to

3 ^^The Answer of Eobert Owen to the Address of the Friends of Truth in
Paisley , New Moral Worlds III, 57—58 (December 17, 1836).

202

Boheri Owen

the rich and involved a slow, painful process. Justice Maule, in
sentencing a prisoner convicted of marrying again while his wife
still lived, used this ironical language :

Prisoner at tlie bar : Yon have been convicted of the offense of bigamy, that
is to say, of marrymg a woman while you had a wife still alive, though it is
true she has deserted you and is living in adultery with another man. You have,
therefore, committed a crime against the laws of your country, and you have
also acted under a very serious misappreuhension of the course which you ought
to have pursued. You should have gone to the ecclesiastical conrt and there
obtained against your wife a decree a mensa et ihoro. You should then have
brought an action in the courts of common law and recovered, as no doubt you
would have recovered, damages against your wife’s paramour. Armed with
these decrees, you should have approached the legislature and obtained an act
of parliament which would have rendered you free and legally competent to
marry the person whom you have taken on yourself to marry with no such
sanction. It is quite true that these proceedings would have cost you many
hundreds of pounds, whereas you probably have not as many pence But the
law knows no distinction between rich and poor. The sentence of the court upon
you, therefore, is that you be imprisoned for one day, which period has already
been exceeded, as you have been in custody since the commencement of the
assizes.^*

The difficulty of securing divorce certainly contributed to much
unhappiness and immorality in England, and Owen was all too
mindful of the fact. But his attack upon marriage went beyond a
mere advocacy of easier divorce and secular marriages. It struck
at the whole idea of the “single family arrangement*’ and the per-
manency of unions. His lectures were full of vast generalizations
and sweeping indictments not alone applicable to marriage but to
human nature in general. The existing marriage system fostered
by the priesthood was shot through with woe and misery. His por-
trayal of it ran in this vein :

And I now tell you, and through you the population of all the nations of the
earth, that the marriages of the world, under the system of moral evil in which
they have been devised and are now contracted, are the sole cause of all the
prostitution, of aU its incalculable grievous evils, and of more than one-half
of all the vilest and most degrading crimes known to society. And that, until
you put away from among you and your children for ever, ihis accursed thing ^
you will never be in a condition to speak the truth, to become chaste or virtuous
in your thoughts and feelings, or to know what real happiness is. Bor now
almost all who are m the married state are daily and hourly practising the
deepest deception, and living in the grossest prostitution of body and mindj

® Article on divorce in the Mnogclopaedia JSritannica, 11th ed., 339.

203

The Marriages of the Friesfhood

and misery is multiplied by it, beyond any of your feeble powers, in your
present ii rational state, to estimate; for it extends directly and indirectly
through, all the ramifications of life. Yes! your fathers, motheis, brothers,
sisters, husbands, wives, and children, are one and all suffering most grievously
from this opposition to nature, from this ignorance of your ovm organization,
from this unnatural crime, which destroys the finest feelmgs and best powers
of the species, by changing sincerity, kindness, affection, sympathy, and pure
love, into deception, envy, jealousy, hatred, and revenge *

In some eases he descended into partienlars but always to set
forth a principle that he held dear. For instance, Owen preached
in wearisome reiteration his psychological creed that man’s feel-
ings were beyond the control of his will ; therefore, it was idle to
suppose that a husband could be expected to love his wife always :

And first, it is most injurious to the husband, who has been trained from
infancy, by the priesthood, to believe that he has the power to feel or not to
feel at his pleasure. This is the foundation on which the priesthood and gov-
ernments form his character. With this impression deeply made on his mind,
we will suppose him in the ordinary circumstances attending these irrational
unions, and that he is about to form a marriage of affection, and of affection,
too, on both sides He supposes, as he has been taught naturally to believe,
that the delightful feelings of affection which he entertains for his wife on
the day in which they axe made, by the priests and the government, to engage
to be one during their lives, and to love each other until death, will remain,
and that he shall have no difficulty in permanently retaining those feelings.
Nothing, according to his previous instruction, can be more easy than to love
or hate whom he pleases, and for as long or short a time as he pleases. He has
been told ^'that, to be good, he must love his neighbour as himself.” He, there-
fore, naturally concludes there can be no difficulty in loving the selected most
favourite object of his choice with the most sincere and ardent affection so
long as both may live. The solemn engagement is therefore entered into, and
the promise unhesitatingly given hy the happy pair, as they are usually de-
nominated by their relatives and neighbours, and the ceremony concludes by
the parties discovering, in one short hour, that they are inseparably bound for
life.®

Owen went on at great length to point out all the difi8.enlties
arising in the marriage relation, the most serious being, of course,
that after the husband and wife had passed through the valley of
disillusionment, they longed to be separated.

^Bobert Owen, “Lecture Delivered at Institution, 14, Charlotte Street, Sun-
day, November 30, 1834,” New Moral World, I, 41-45 (December 6 1834).

« Bobert Owen, “Lecture DeUvexed at Institution, 14, Charlotte Street, Sun-
day Evening, December 14, 1834,” New Mo^al World, I, 67-61 (December 20,
1834).

204

Boiert Owen

Owen drew a picture of the bored husband seeking relief from
his unhappy lot by calling on a female ^^prepared to receive visi-
tors/’ Yet all this waywardness was due to ignorance.

If the husband had been taught to know himself and the influence of circum-
stances upon human nature, he would become conscious that the pleasurable
sensations which he experienced in the company of the person visited, and the
painful ones inflicted upon him in the company of his wife, arose more fre-
quently from the difference of the ciroumstances in which these parties were
placed, than from the difference of persons. Were the wife, as she was the first
choice of the husband, placed in the position of the visited female, and the
latter within the circumstances of the wife, it is most probable that in nineteen
eases out of twenty the feelings respecting them would be reversed.®

After dilating upon the plight of the husband, Owen never neg-
lected to do justice to the unfortunate position of the wife. She
now, according to Owen, ^^by religion and law” became the property
of her husband and of necessity had to fall in with his will no mat-
ter how arbitrary. The result must he that the wife would resort
to deception. She could not live so unnatural a life.

As nature, however, has never once been consulted in all these proceedings
of artifice, ceremony, and absurdity, and all her laws have been neglected or
openly opposed, she interposes and insists upon having her laws ohe^^ed, and
the will, opinions, and feelings of the wife are consequently not the husband’s,
hut nature’s, and if he will insist upon that which it is not in the power of his
wife to give to any one contrary to nature’s laws, he forces her to learn the
common hypocrisy of a wife, and to become an adept in hiding from him her
will, her opinions, her feelings, and often her conduct. While to the wife this
long life of deception becomes the most destructive of every ennobling and
superior faculty, feeling, and quality of human nature, and she is necessarily
forced to become a weak, cunning, deceptions, inferior being, whatever she may
he considered by her husband and the world.”^

Owen went further and grew bolder. He next declared that ‘^all
married pairs, with a very few exceptions, are living in a state of
the most degrading prostitution, enforced upon them by the human
laws of marriage.”® It is probable he meant that marriage was
prostitution if carried on without love. But at other times he spoke
of the wide prevalence of prostitution as such and charged it to
the ^'artificial marriages” advocated by the clergy.

^md.

®^^Lectnre Delivered at Burton Booms, Burton Street, January 11, 1835,”
New Moral World, I, 89-91 (January 17, 1835).

The Marriages of the Priesthood 205

Owen had mucli to say about chastity :

Pure, genuine, unadulterated chastity will be known only when men and
women shall form their unions through the sympathies of unbiassed affection,
and when these feelings, given to ns by our nature for our happiness, shall
be openly and undisguisedly expressed in all the simplicity and innocency of
truth, that all might know them, and, knowing them, that none might interfere.

This IS the only mode by which the chastity of woman can be insured; for
if men are not chaste, how is it possible for women to be so f ®

Wben Owen was attacked for threatening the order and stability
of society by his views on marriage, he declared that society as
constituted was in “utter confusion,"’ and, therefore, it had no order
to maintain. Each individual pursuing his selfish ends did not form
for him any harmony worth preserving.

When Owen’s critics raised a great cry against the danger to
children if the bonds of matrimony should be loosened, he called
attention to the irrational education children were receiving at
the hands of their parents in the “single-family arrangements.”
Of course, as a cure he had in mind the community life where the
children would be the concern of the group and would be educated
by it. The failure of New Harmony had in no way shaken his faith
in the emancipation of men through education. Indeed, on the occa-
sion of a lecture given on marriage early in 1835, he spoke in no
uncertain terms of the duty the national government owed to
society.

Children might be so trained as to yield a rich return to society
for its investment.

This result, however, cannot be effected by the immediate parents of the chil-
dren; society alone can insure these blessings to mankind; and the first indi-
cation of governments becoming rational will be, when they shall be discovered
to be earnestly and sincerely engaged in devising a sound practical national
education for the children of all their subjects ; an education in which physical
and mental employment of real utility and value to mankind, must, of neces-
sity, become an essential part. Whatever may be the intentions of Tories,
Whigs, or Eadicals, of the religious or the irreligious members of the new
House of Commons, if they do not bring forward this subject on the only solid
foundation on which it can be placed, that is, to form a superior rational char-
acter for each individual, believe not in their wisdom or practical knowledge
for legislators. Be assured they are mere talking members, without the req-
uisite qualifications to lay the foundation on which to make useful laws or

mid.

206

Robert Owen

regulations for tlie government of the British empiie; and more especially
to make them, at this important period, in the emergency of human affairs,
when the nations of the earth are looking to the parliament and people of this
country for a great and good example, an example, too, which all nations and
people might with safety adopt, to insure, in peace, their future progiess in
all kinds of improvement, physical, mental, and moral, that their progressive
prosperity and happiness might be rendei ed certain, without creating the envy
or jealousy of any other portion of the human race

Thus Owen called upon his people to form a national policy in
education. But years were to pass before they gave heed to that call.
Not until the Education Act of 1870 did England launch out on a
plan to educate the masses.

In all of Owen's attacks upon the marriage system of his day,
he never left off whacking away at “false modesty" and prudery.
He insisted over and over again upon frankness in dealing with
matters of sex. Children must be taught the facts about their na-
tures. The whole sex life must be healthy and could only be made
so by removing from it the veil of mystery and secrecy.

It is not strange that Englishmen of the age that was to make
prudery a religion should have taken alarm at such a prophet as
Owen. Indeed, we are told that his books and lectures were con-
sidered too vile to be carried by respectable booksellers in London.

Owen blamed the clergy for the rise of false modesty :

The fall of man from innocency and from the plain and direct road to intel-
ligence and happiness occurred when the priesthood of the world induced some
of our ignorant ancestors to feel ashamed of any part of their nature. That
this feeling is altogether an artificial and false shame may be ascertained by
observing how difficult it is to impress the necessity for it upon all children,
and to notice the different habits respecting it which obtain among various
nations and tribes, and how much the people of one country condemn the notions
of others upon the practices which, in these respects, are national in various
districts of the world.^^

And so in this easy manner Owen disposed of the origin of shame.
The priesthood was to blame, as it was to blame for irrational mar-
riage and most of the other troubles that flesh is heir to. Verily,
Owen belonged to the generation of Rousseau.

While Owen railed ceaselessly at the “false modesty" inspired
lUd.

^^Leeture Delivered at Charlotte Street Institution, Sunday Evening, Janu-
ary 4, 1835,^^ New Moral World, I, 81-83 (January 10, 1835).

207

The Marriages of the Priesthood

by the priesthood through its ^^satauie device’’ of marriage, he dealt
direct and heavy blows at celibacy :

Celibacy, beyond the period plainly indicated for its termination by nature,
although esteemed a high virtue under the reign of moral evil, will be hnown,
under the reign of moral good, to be a great crime, necessarily leading to dis-
ease of body and mind, and to unnatural thoughts, feelings, and conduct, and
to every hind of falsification of our real impressions, sympathies, and sensa-
tions, all of which are of nature's most wise creation, in perfect accordance
with the superior organization which it has given to man over the inferior
animals.^

At this point Owen spoke the language of the modern psycholo-
gists, especially those belonging to the school of Sigmund Freud.
In all his views on sex and marriage, Owen showed himself to be
healthy-minded and frank.

Though Owen spoke brave and revolutionary words against mar-
riage and conventional sex morality, his practice did not always
square with his theories. At New Harmony marriage and giving
in marriage went on in the same old way, though there were cases
where an attempt was made to eliminate the clergy in the cere-
mony.

In an address given at Charlotte Street in 1833, Owen set forth
his regulations for marriage :

MABBIAGB

Persons haYing an affection for eaeli other, and being desirous of forming
an union, first announce such intention publicly m our Sunday assemblies. If
tlie intention remain at the end of three months, they make a second public
declaration,- which declaration [on] being registered in the books of the So-
ciety will constitute their marriage: —

Object of Marriage

In our new world, marriages will he solely formed to promote the happiness
of the sexes, and if this end be not obtained, the object of the union is de-
feated: —

DIYORGE

1st. When BOTH parties desire to separate.

Should the parties, therefore, after the termination of twelve months at the
soonest, discover that their dispositions and habits are unsuited to each other,
and that there is little or no prospect of happiness being derived from their
union, they are to make a public declaration as before, to that effect. After
which they return, and live together six months longer — at the termination of

“Lecture Delivered at Charlotte Street Institution, London, Sunday Eve-
ning, November 30, 1834,” Moral World, I, 41-45 (December 6, 1834).

208

Robert Owen

wMeii, if they still find their qualities discordant, and 'both parties unite in the
declaration, they make a second declaration; both of which being duly regis-
tered and witnessed, will constitute their legal separation. —

2nd. When ONLY ONE ‘party desires a separation.

Should one alone come forward upon the last declaration, and the other
object to the separation, they would be required to live together another six
months^ to try if their feelings and habits could be made to accord, so as to
promote happiness. But if at the end of the second six months, the objecting
party shall remain of the same mind, the separation is then to be final :

Position of parties after separation.

And the parties may, without diminution of public opinion, form new unions
more suited to their dispositions.^*

Since this scheme of marriage and divorce was to be in efiEect in
Owen’s ideal society, the children of separated parents would be
taken care of by the community.

There were many in England who professed to see in Owen’s
marriage ideas an endorsement of free love. Indeed, he spoke quite
freely of making nature the guide to mating, and he dwelt at
length upon the “superior children” that would be born to couples
naturally joined. In his denunciations of unions maintained by
compulsion, he gave no recognition to the spirit of forbearance. Of
course he assumed all marriages in the old moral world to be bad ;
they were bad chiefly because of the taint of priestcraft.

It was not strange, then, that Owen should have drawn the fire
of the clergy he so plainly berated.

A certain clergyman bearing the name of Brindley moved to
the defense of marriage. His methods were not those of sweet
reasonableness but were rather those of the buUy and cheap plat-
form orator. He made no attempt to meet Owen’s arguments but
appealed to the emotions of his audiences. He not only spoke
against Owen and the socialists, but he issued pamphlets. The
following is an example of his style of attack :

Yet Robert Oweu has most perversely declared that ^^Marriage is the chief
cause of all the vice and misery that exists in the world,^^ and that there is
more prostitution among married persons than with open prostitutes! Let
every honest man and woman throw back the charge with indignation. When
Mr. Owen and his missionaries come into your neighbourhood, tell them that
whatever wickedness he may have been accustomed to encourage in his

“Proposed Regulations of Marriage and Divorce under the Rational Sys-
tem of Society, Manifesto of Pobert Owen, the Discoverer, Pounder, and
Promulgator, of the Pational System of Society, and of the Pational Peligion^
pp. 56-58.

209

The Marriages of the Priesthood

^Social Communities/ the mechanics and agricultural labourers of England
are virtuous and religious as well as industrious and honest. There are some
vicious individualSj we know, in every society, and ever will be, because of
man’s evil nature, but let it not go forth to the world that the state of the
married people of England is a state of gross prostitution. Do not allow
yourselves to be so shamefully slandered by a man who wishes to excuse
the immoralities and wickedness of his own system, by boldly charging these
vices upon mankind in general. Is it not to such persons that the following
passages apply? “Being filled with all imrighteousness, fornication, wicked-
ness, covetousness, maliciousness, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud,
boasters, INVENTOES OF EYIL THINGS, disobedient to parents, without
understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection (Eom. i, 29, 31.)
“Their throat is an open supulchre ; with their tongues they have used deceit,
the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and
bitterness. There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Bom. ui, 13, 14, 18.)^^

Thus lie bombarded Owen with Holy Writ, representing bim
and bis socialists as altogether vile creatures to be shunned by
virtuous Englishmen. He professed to see in Owen a menace to
the home and family. The children must not become ‘‘PUBLIC
PEOPEETY.”^^

Brindley and others circulated stories of socialists seducing in-
nocent girls and deserting them. Their meeting places were por-
trayed as brothels, while insinuations of immorality were made
against Owen himself and not without foundation against George
Fleming, former editor of the New Moral World and social mis-
sionary. Pamphlets were published laying bare the awful iniquities
of the free-love Owenites. Their titles were highly suggestive.
For instance some read like these: A True Exposure of the Noted
Boh erf Owen, The Immoralities of Socialism, An Exposure of a
New System of Irreligion which is called the New Moral World,
and The Human Eccoleohion ; or the New Moral Warren.

This last named work was a satire and burlesque on Owen’s
New Moral World done in doggerel Terse. The excerpts given be-
low are a sample of the work of some anonymous writer :

I built a large square.

And in it placed there

Of the sexes about the same number :

I enacted no laws
For Chastity’s cause,

John Brindley, Beply to Bobert OwerCs Attack upon Marriage: In an
Address to the Working Classes, pp. 7-8.

^lUd.

210

Bohert Owen

As children could ue^er us encumber ;

For, when babies are born,

From infancy’s morn

They’re reared in New Harmony’s laws,

In our epicene schools.

Where they follow Love’s rules
And cannot commit any ^^f aux pas.”

Doating mothers, I find,

Are often inclined

Their children to spoil thro’ indulgence :

I staid nurses select.

All the faults to correct

Which tarnish their mental efiulgency.

As soon as short-coated.

Their time is devoted

To gambols, their strength to improve :

Adolescence advancing,

They learn ploughing and dancing,

Scrubbing floors, the piano, and love.

******

Chastity is a connexion
United with affection —

Here there can be no pollution :

But if love should forsake us,

And coldness overtake us.

Then marriage is mere prostitution.

Another pamphlet apparently written by B. Hancock gives an
account of the seduction of three girls by socialists. The title is
sufficiently explanatory: Oh Vice where is thy Shame, The Eor-
nble effects of the Social System with an account of the cruel
seduction of the Three Unfortunate Sisters, Mary, Elizabeth, and
Catherine Johnson, and the Death-Bed Scene of Their Wretched
Father, Allured by teachings of Owen,

Owen was indeed too much bedeviled by the iconoclastic spirit
to be acceptable as a reformer. In his great urge to smash the
institution of marriage as fostered by the clergy, he gave out the
impression that he was opposed to aU marriage whatsoever. But
Owen was no advocate of promiscuity. All that he ever demanded
of the marriage relation was that it be based upon affection and
that the whole relationship be made voluntary. Once more Owen
looms up a full century ahead of his times.

CHAPTER XX

CHAEITY AND MALICE

C WEN, HAVING proclaimed to tlie world Ms views on marriage,
I did not rest from his labors. Once more with a great flourish
" of trumpets he announced a new society to bring about the
redemption of man. At a huge public meeting held on May 1, 1835,
the Association of All Classes of All Nations came into being.

As usual at ^these meetings, Owen was called to preside. With
natural dignity he acknowledged the demonstration made in his
favor. He had now reached the stage in his career when his follow-
ers delighted to honor him, and he in turn looked upon them with
fatherly concern.

Charity was the keynote of Owen's speech. But his charity was
a little lacking when he referred to faith, the leading principle of
those who followed the religious course :

Faith in things unseen and unTcnown, is the governing principle of the evil
spirit of the world. Chanty for the thoughts, feelings, and conduct of others,
is the governing principle of the good spirit of the world. This faith is the
father of ignorance, of lies, of arrogance and presumption, of violence and
cruelty, and it is destructive of all charity. . . .

The Association of All Classes of AU Nations, therefore, adopts for its
motto, Charity,- for its governing principle, Charity; and for its conduct.
Charity.^

Toward the close of his address, Owen announced his determina-
tion to resign the office of Preliminary Father of the Association
of All Classes of All Nations at the end of the first year, namely,
May 14, 1836, when he would be sixty-five years old.’ He wanted
to devote his time to writing on Ms views, and especially did he
want to write a history of his life : “A history of my life is also
necessary to afford me the opportunity to disabuse the public
mind of the bare-faced falsehoods relative to my proceedings, with
wMch the religious world has attempted to fill it, by industriously
inventing and propagating absurd fictions, contradictions, and

^“The Great Public Meeting on May 1st,” New Moral World, I, 217—218
(May 9, 18E5).

2 See lUd., 225-281 (May 16, 1835).

[ 211 ]

212

Robert Owen

inconsistencies respecting my plans, and by attributing the origin
of the improvements which I have, at various times, introduced
and proposed for the general benefit of society, to any other indi-
vidual rather than to myself.”®

The Association aimed to promulgate Owen’s teachings to all
parts of the world by forming branch associations in England
and in foreign countries and by sending .out paid missionaries to
spread the gospel. The organization was to consist of a president,
known as “The Father of the New Moral World,” of a Senior
Council of twelve, of a Junior Council of twelve, and of an
Executive of six. The president was to be appointed by the unani-
mous choice of the two councils.

In those golden years of his messiahship, Owen christened babies
and wrote endless memorials and letters to emperors, kings, prime
ministers, and powerful newspapers. They thought him a little
mad, but he went on preaching and believing that men could be
made rational.

To those who thought of Owen in terms of practical reform and
attainable objectives, he did indeed seem mad. But to men who
believed that the most fundamental problems were ethical and
religious, he must have appeared as a great teacher.

On one occasion, he wrote a very long letter to Sir Eobert Peel
after he had read the speech which Peel had delivered in Merchant
Tailors’ Hall on May 11. Owen held up Peel’s father as a great
ideal to him and called attention to Peel’s lack of experience : “Ton
have written as an Oxford-man, as a man of learning, as a man
early initiated into office without experience of the world, as the
leader of the late all-powerful political party^ and as the man
upon whom, in conjunction with his Grace the Duke of Welling-
ton, that party depends to save it from gradually falling into
annihilation.”^

At the end of his letter, Owen gave this advice to Peel :

As a party man, yon can no longer do good to yourself, your party, or
your country. The period has arrived for you to shake off all party views,
prejudices, and considerations j to take your stand as an independent indi-
vidual member of the House of Commons, having your country to save by
your conduct and example; and contend for new institutions and arrange-
ments, to call the crushed and restrained power and energy of the British

Wb%d>.

" May 26, 1835, in the New Moral World, I, 253-256 (June 6, 1835).

Charity and Malice 213

empire into full action, to give its population the character, the wealth, and
the happmess which it ought now to enjoj, and to extend to all other nations.'

Owen sent petitions to the House of Lords and also to the Com-
mons. In all these there was but one refrain : change the present
system.

Owen wrote to Melbourne on June 1, 1835, begging him to make
the changes necessary to bring about a happy and an intelligent
society. He wrote of his ‘‘discoveries” about the nature of man’s
character and offered to go before the bars of the Lords and Com-
mons to prove the truth of his principles.®

Lord Brougham and Lord John Eussell also received letters
from Owen importuning them to use their power to transform
society. Spring-Eice, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Daniel
O’Connell were not neglected. In fact, Owen passed no one by who
might help him in gaining his objective.

It was fitting that Owen, the social father of the socialists,
should put into one book the whole of his teachings. In 1836,
being sixty-five years old, he brought out the first part of the
Booh of the New Moral World, as he styled the work destined
to become the bible of his followers. The other parts were issued
from time to time until the whole work was before the public.

The book contains nothing that Owen had not repeated many
times before in one form or another, but it stood as the whole
gospel gathered together so that all men might read his social
message.

In the introduction, Owen set forth his fundamental dictum
that poverty and ignorance are unnecessary. Once more he recited
the paradox : Why is it that we go without, when production has
been so vastly increased by the new machinery ?

Malthus and his crowd of disciples he held to be wrong. There
was plenty for all. The resources of the country were adequate.
All that was needed was the application of knowledge. Chemistry
would do wonders for the soil and agricultural production. But
if in the remote future the communities should become too thickly
populated, there was always the possibility of “swarming.” Dis-
tant and backward lands beckoned to those who found the older
civilizations too crowded. Like the Greek colonists of classical

- X U flUi,

® Se© tlie New Moral World, I, 261—263 (June 13, 1835).

214

Boberi Owen

times, the modem Utopians would plant across the sea a commu-
nity life modeled after the homeland.

Buddha-like, Owen laid down his ^Tive Fundamental Facts,’’
Ms “Eighteen Evils,” and “Twenty Laws of Human Nature.” The
“Five Fundamental Facts” are not new, but they give his philos-
ophy of environment within reasonable compass :

1. Tiiat man is a- compound being, whose character is formed of his consti-
tution or organisation at birth, and of the effects of external circumstances
upon ‘it from birth to death: such original organization and external influence
continually acting and reacting upon each other.

2. That man is compelled by his original constitution to receive his feelings
and his convictions independently of his will.

3. That his feelings and his convictions, or both of them united, create the
motive to acton called the Will, which stimulates him to act and decides Ms
actions.

4. That the organization of no two human beings is ever precisely similar
at birth,* nor can art subsequently form any two individuals, from infancy
to maturity, to be precisely similar.

5. That nevertheless, the constitution of every infant, except in case of
organic disease, is capable of being formed into a very inferior or a very
superior bemg, accordmg to the qualities of the external circumstances
allowed to influence the constitution from birth ^

From these “Five Fundamental Facts” Owen goes on to his
“Twenty Fundamental Laws of Human Nature,” in which he
elaborates in great detail the principles to be followed in producing
“a superior character.”® He develops no new ideas but merely
restates his creed on the vast importance of proper education.
Though his repetitions are wearisome beyond measure, his view
of human nature as plastic material to mold in any shape desired
is a refreshing one. All original sin has been purged from his
ideal man, thus making possible a new race only a little below
the angels.

Owen was indeed possessed of a glorious naivete that heartened
his generation and gave men of the nineteenth century a faith in
the possibility of social reform that carried them far.

Throughout the whole book runs the refrain of education for
all and happiness as the goal of all endeavor. This happiness could
only be attained by building “Villages of Co-operation and Equal-
ity” with 500 to 2,000 inhabitants.

^ Boo'k of the New Moral World,, Pt. I, p. 1.

« See llid,, 1-3.

215

Charity and Malice

There were to be eight ages in the life of the man of the New
Moral World. Prom birth to five years of age, the child was to be
the subject of the most careful training. He was to be loosely
clothed and given exercise in the pure air, and under no circum-
stances was he to know rewards and punishments. Inhibitions of
every kind were to be absolutely taboo in his education, but at
the same time he was to be taught charity for others. Individual
and selfish feelings were to be directed into contributing to the
happiness of others.

In the second age, children from five to ten years old were to
“discard the useless toys of the old world” and learn useful arts
by actual practice. Book learning was to have little place in the
educational process. Conversation with older persons and actually
handling of objects were to be the means of gaining knowledge.

In the next age, from ten to fifteen, the children were to learn
the use of mechanical devices and practice the more useful arts.
All their work, according to Owen, was to be carried on with the
greatest pleasure to themselves and to the community. Alas, he
must have had experiences with children that most of us know not.

The youthful communists of the fourth age, from fifteen to
twenty years, were to become men and women of a new race. They
were to be physically, intellectually, and morally far ahead of
any men who have ever lived upon this earth. In this period they
were to be instructors of the class below them and also producers
on their own account. But far more interesting in this age of
their life, they were to mate and make happy and, in most cases,
lasting unions.

These four classes, Owen hoped, would be able to produce all
the wealth needed for the community. But to guard against pos-
sible failure, the fifth age, ranging from twenty to twenty-five,
was to act as producers as well as instructors and directors of
every branch of activity.

Those who had reached the age of twenty-five were to be freed
from the necessity of producing goods. Their task was to be that
of distribution, and that work would probably not occupy more
than two hours of their time in the day. This happy age was to
last until they were thirty years old, when they would enter a
new class devoted to the internal affairs of the community. They
would settle disputes and administer justice.

216

Bobert Owen

Lastly, those from forty to sixty years of age were to undertake
the foreign affairs of the colony. They were to arrange for the sale
of the surplus products and regulate the external trade. It was
to he their task to keep the transportation system in good shape.
Men in this class were to be encouraged to travel to other com-
munities and also to journey around the world. Indeed, Owen
visioned a world converted into pleasure gardens inhabited by
happy, rational people living in communities of cooperation.^

In this new society, youth was to do the producing. It will be
remembered that no one over twenty-five was to be called upon
for productive work. We of the twentieth century disposed to
shelve the older members of our society would scarcely suggest
twenty-five as the age. It is quite apparent that Owen was much
impressed with the possibilities of science. He hoped that chem-
istry and the continued use of machinery would accomplish much
and that great economies could be effected by doing away with
competition. But in his calculations he never reckoned on the
necessity of building up a reserve of capital to buy machinery
and the tools of production. Or, if he meant that each community
was to be self-supporting, more labor than the amount he laid
down would be necessary, unless the standard of living was to be
kept very low.

Perhaps we should not take Utopians too seriously. Their task
is not to devise a scheme to fit a real society but rather one to
delight our fancy.

The Booh of the New Moral World was indeed a work of fancy ;
for Owen by this time had lost contact with the world of selfish
human beings struggling for wealth and power. But at times he
was mindful of the evils in the world, and in his book he reduced
the causes of them to eighteen.

He started off his list with religions and followed with govern-
ments and all military and civil professions. He regarded the
monetary systems of nations and the practice of buying and
selling for profit, together with the whole system of producing
and distributing wealth, as bad.

Owen regarded contests, whether individual or national, civil
or military, as evils. And of course he attacked the ‘‘present prac-
tice of forming the character of man ’’ He did not forget to include

" See lUd., Pt. Y, pp. 65-78.

Charity and Malice 217

the well-known and time-honored stand-bys of men — fraud and
force. ‘^Separate interests and universal disunion’^ fell in line for
Owen’s condemnation, and isolated families and distinct family
concerns were also added. He showed himself to be a true modem
in his denunciation of the practice of educating women to be
“family slaves instead of superior companions.” “The artificial
indissoluble marriages of the priesthood” completed the list of
evils that bedeviled the family. But Owen was by no means through
with his catalogue of human shortcomings.

“Falsehood and deception, the strong oppressing the weak, and
unequal education,” all must be eradicated if the New Moral World
was to be a reality. Likewise, “the levying of unequal taxes and
expending them on inefficient measures” was among Owen’s evils.
And finally, he concluded by directing attention to the practice
of producing “inferior wealth of all kinds, when the most superior
would be more economical, and far more to be desired.’”®
Magnificent naivete ? Perhaps not. Maybe Owen saw all these
evils flowing from the “practice of buying and selling for profit,”
as he spoke of the profit system, and not due to the inherent per-
versity of man. Owen certainly was not always clear in the way
he wrote or spoke. A little prompting might well have led him to
blame the profit system for our bad morals and manners even
as the modern socialists have done. But in any case, Owen, the
messiah, found in the community life ordered by reason and edu-
cation the way to escape the evils of life.

Shortly after the publication of the first part of the Booh of
the New Moral World in 1836, reviews of it appeared in the news-
papers and journals. Most of them took the view that Owen was
a well-meaning, high-minded man, but that his theories were im-
practical. In Bell’s Weekly Messenger of August, 1836, appeared
a review in many respects characteristic of the others. The reviewer
declared :

To call Bobert Owen visionarj,” an “entlmsiast,” is only to take a part
in the stupid eboius of the tbink-notbing and do-notbing grubs of the Metro-
politan and Provincial Press ; and, therefore, so we will not call bim, although
we may not have the honour of being “Owenites.” We,^ in common with all
unprejudiced men, most sincerely respect the benevolent liberality and arduous
perseverance, the capacity, the intrepidity, with which Mr Owen has, through

iy,p.45.

218

Boberi Owen

evil report and good, pursued even tenor of Ixis way/’ in the devoting
of Ms life and large fortune towards forwarding the progression of what he,
at least, believes to he the possible Perfectability of the Terrestial Condition
of the Human Race. As man, he has diligently laboured for us as men ; and
whether we in our individual judgments consider him to be right or wrong,
in thought or in action, as men we ought honorably to pay tribute to the
wisdom and nobleness of his intentions, whatever we may do to what we may
consider to be their conventional tendency.^

But in the end the reviewer found the schemes of Owen to be
impractical: “The vast majority of the commnnity [people of
England] , there can be but little question, look upon that system
but as a gorgeously-inflated brain-balloon, with Mr. Owen for its
adventurous aeronaut.”^

The Morning Advertiser in its issue of August 15, after com-
menting favorably upon Owen as a man, declared :

His intentions are excellent, and his aspirations invariably, for the good
of his fellow creatures; but here our commendations must cease; for any
thing more impractical, or more visionary, m every respect, than his schemes
we have never been acquainted VTith. He lives in a world of dreams, and
though each dream proves in due time to be a mere phantom of the imagina-
tion : he never awakens to the mortifying reality that they are unfit to form
the basis of a sound and practical system.^®

Owen received hard blows from the Morning Post in its issue
of September 14, 1836. In this paper he was denounced as a radical :

He would utterly subvert and destroy all the existing institutions, civil,
political, and religious, of the civilized world, and re-create human nature
itself, in the frantic expectation of establishing a Paradise on earth.^^

But at the end the journal conceded that Owen had displayed
considerable acuteness and ability in his treatment of the meta-
physical questions involved.^® Of course, all alike recognized in
Owen a necessitarian.

All this criticism touched Owen not. Any man who could pro-
nounce the following prophecy stood little chance of being in-
fluenced by contrary opinions:

This is the third, or next state of existence ; the one for which we are pre-
paring; the Hew Moral World of man; the regenerated world, when men

Cited by the New Moral World, II, 348 (August 27, 1836) .

^Uhid,

^ md., 349 (August 27, 1836).

Hid., Ill, 6 (October 29, 1836).

^ See Ibtd.

Chanty and Malice 219

shall be born again, and know each other, even as they know themselves ; when
swords shall be turned into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks;
when every man shall sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree, and there
shall be none to make him afraid; and when divine knowledge, or truth
unmixed with error, shall spread throughout all lands, and pervade all minds.^**

By 1836 the storm against Owen was rising. He and Ms mis-
sionaries were now looked upon as infidels, dangerous to the well-
being of the Chnreh and the morals of Englishmen. Clergymen
attended lectures given by Owen, Fleming, and other social mis-
sionaries. They came away alarmed at the expressions of irreligion,
and some straightway issued challenges to debate. Owen came in
for his share of the challenges ; and, in spite of the advice of his
friends, he accepted some of them. But that story belongs in
another place.

Now came the year 1837. Owen was sixty-six ; and, still filled
with the crusading spirit, he crossed the Channel for a tour of
the Continent. Once more he interviewed kings and ministers high
in the state. Once more he importuned them to use their power to
abolish forever the irrational society of “the old immoral world.”
But it was to end just as it ended twenty years before ; “Mr. Owen,
I agree with you perfectly. Submit your plans and details in
writing.” And that was all. He was bowed out. The poor grew
poorer; the reign of ignorance continued; the priests and poli-
ticians practiced their frauds. How well did Owen remember in
those days the words of Gentz : “It is not to our interest to educate
the people.”

There was a fine public dinner given Owen in Paris during the
summer of 1837. On tMs occasion Owen made an address. He called
upon the King, Louis Philippe, to form a new holy alliance. He
also begged the French nation to throw off the yoke of “the old
moral world” and enter into a better life by embracing the New

Moral World.'"’

While in Paris, Owen gave three lectures explaining his system.
At one lecture given in the Hotel de Ville, he was asked a question
relative to the place of labor in his social system. It appeared that
the question was put to him by a follower of Charles Fourier, the
social reformer. Owen, as usual, did not answer the question di-

^<J«Property,” ITew Moral World, 1, 131 (February 21, 1835).

See ^Tublie Dinner in Paris, To Mr. Owen,” New Moral World, III, 353-
354 (August 26, 1837).

220

Boberi Owen

rectly, with the result that hostile newspapers announced to the
public that “the great Mr. Owen” had been stumped,'*®

If Owen was not always convincing, he was everlastingly per-
sistent and industrious. From capital to capital he marched, per-
petually smiling benevolently. It was a strenuous ordeal for a
man of sixty-six, but Owen was no ordinary man. We find him
writing thus to George Fleming, a social missionary, from Vienna :

You will not conclude I am in bad bealtb, or in riotous company, when I
tell you that I am up almost every morning before five, and with my pen in
my hand before six.^®

Among the many whom Owen sought to interview was Louis,
King of Bavaria. The King was a pretty busy man in 1837 and
emphasized the fact in a brief note to Owen :

The King has plainty to doo. Nousbibus, he will see Mr. Owen but for a
moment only and if the gentelman has proposals to make he may if it pleases
to him send they written because without dis the King should be obliged to
make a protocolist for what he possesses no time."*^

And so Owen, armed with his plan of salvation, was ushered
into the presence of the King, who listened respectfully for a few
minutes and then gave the signal that sent the English philan-
thropist on his way. It was all part of the day^s business to Louis,
but to Owen it meant a chance that his plans might be adopted
by a kingdom.

In Berlin, Owen again met the versatile Baron von Humboldt.
That eminent scientist called on him and listened an hour while
Owen explained the beauties of his system Apparently Humboldt
was interested, for he listened an hour and a half more when Owen
returned the visit a day or two later. In departing Owen left the
Booh of the New Moral World for Humboldt to read.^^ Owen had
already interviewed Metternich; Baron Lindeman, prime min-
ister of Saxony; and many others high in affairs. There was
nothing more that he could do but go home to England and wait
for the new day to dawn.

See tbe New Moral World, III, 377 ff. (September 16, 1837). Oweu^s ver-
sion of the matter was that it would have taken several lectures to explain tbe
answer to the question.

October 21, 1837, in the New Moral World, IV, 21-22 (November 11,
1837).

October 1, 1837, in ^o'bert Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manchester
Collection.

See letter of Owen to Alger, November 29, 1837, in New Moral World, IV,
62 (December 16, 1837),

Charity and Malice 221

On his return from the Continent, Owen faced the clergy in
arms ready to do battle against infidelity. The opposition to him
had been rising steadily since the missionaries of the Association
of All Classes had taken the field.

In the spring of 1837 before Owen left for his Continental tour,
he had engaged in a public discussion of his views with the Rev-
erend J. H. Roebuck of Manchester. The discussion was carried
on with the utmost good feeling by both men. Owen, as usual,
took the position that man is not free to believe as he wishes but
is entirely a creature of circumstance or environment; w’hile
Roebuck countered by asking Owen how he could possibly be
rational, when according to his own statement he was surrounded
by irrational circumstances. How could the rational come out of
the irrational?^

Indeed, Owen did not answer this point made against him. It
was an argument used over and over by his opponents in the long
years of his messiahship, but it did nothing to shatter his faith in
his principles.

Roebuck scored another hit against his rival when Owen asked
him if he had ever seen spirit apart from matter. He replied by
declaring that he would tell Owen as much about spirit as Owen
could tell him about matter For the greater part, the debate was
like most of Owen’s discussions with opponents: it ran along
parallel lines, but he was always glad for an opportunity to explain
his views.

Reverend John Brindley, one of the most aggressive of the
clerical opponents of socialism, was a man of very different stamp
from Roebuck. Brindley moved up and down the kingdom seeking
to destroy the socialists root and branch. He was resourceful in
debate and possessed no nice scruples about conduct. Any expedi-
ent whatsoever, no matter how dubious, was acceptable to him in
discrediting the socialists. Owen heard from all directions the
frightened cries of his missionaries begging the master to come
and do battle with the terrible Brindley.

In an evil hour for him, Owen accepted a challenge made by
Brindley and met him in the town hall at Worcester January 7,
1839 There was a great crowd of Brindley’s supporters present.

^ See Tullio Dismissim Between Bobert Owen, Late of N ew LanarTc, and the
Bev. J, S. Boeluclc, of Manchester, p. 22.

^ See Ibid,, 55, 58.

222

Boiert Owen

The chairman o£ the meeting was a Dr. Malden, who on every
possible occasion showed his partiality for the cause that Brindley
was championing. In such a setting with the audience, chairman,
and an opponent hostile, it is small wonder that Owen had a
rongh time.

When Brindley arose to speak, he placed the Bible on one side
of the table before him, and on the other side he placed the Book
of the New Moral World and Owen^s Ten Lectures on Marriage.
Then in a most demanding tone he asked Owen to confess that
these works expressed correctly his ideas. When Owen agreed
they did, Brindley proceeded to point ont the dangerous and
foolish character of the ideas contained in them. At one moment
in his attack, he paused ; and then with dramatic fervor he asked :
“If Socialism be true, what will you gain thereby?” A voice —
“Nothing.” “What do you gain, on the contrary, if the Bible be
true?” A voice — “Eternal life.”^*

While Owen was speaking in defense of his works, Brindley
frequently interrupted him by such expressions as “Irrational and
insane books ?”^ The chairman of the meeting did nothing to stop
him. In fact, he too chimed in with words of approval. And so
the “social father” found himself in very unsympathetic company.

The climax of the debate at Worcester came when Owen turned
to a discussion of marriage: “Two young persons of the same
rank of life, favorably situated in point of fortune, agree with
the consent of their parents to be married. The priesthood had
surrounded this ceremony with all the solemn circumstances which
they know how to create and these young persons were seduced —
Owen never finished the sentence that night. The uproar that fol-
lowed the dangerous word “seduced” was such as to end the meet-
ing right there and then.

In vain did Owen attempt to set himself aright by protesting
in a letter to Dr. Malden, chairman of the meeting. In the letter
he explained that the word “seduced” was used in an entirely
innocent sense. Owen requested that the letter be published in the
Worcester newspapers, but his plea was denied."^ And so Owen

^ “Worcester — ^Discussion Between Mr. Brindley and Mr. Owen/^ Worcester
Chronicle, n.d., cited by tbe New Moral World, V, 193-196 (January 19, 1839) ,

^ IMd.

^ lUd.

^ See the New Moral World, Y, 196 (January 19, 1839).

Charity and Malice 223

became still more suspect as an advocate of free love and other
doctrines dangerous to the morals of Englishmen.

Brindley was not through with Owen. Indeed, he found in him
a splendid source of revenue and notoriety. A w^eek later he met
him at Birmingham before a packed house. Once more he tore
into Owen with all his arguments and cheap tricks, and once more
Owen attempted vainly to spread the gospel of the New Moral
World to a hostile audience.

In this second meeting with Brindley, Owen came out as a
geographical environmentalist. In fact, he anticipated Buckle by
a decade or two. He maintained that a study of history would re-
veal that religious convictions were merely the result of geographi-
cal circumstances. And then he went much further and reached
a point away beyond the dreams of Buckle, Ratzel, and even
Huntington. He declared that if he be told the latitude and
longitude of a place, he would give the religious convictions of the
populations as well as their general habits, manners, and customs.^

In these two meetings with Brindley, Owen had proved himself
no match for such a man. It seemed to be Brindley’s purpose to
put on a good show for the benefit of his supporters, and to gain
that end he spared no mud. But Owen looked upon these en-
counters as opportunities to explain his system.

About a year later when Owen was in Burslem, he met Brindley
at the White Sheaf Inn, where the latter sought to persuade Owen
to meet him in debate again. Owen refused, declaring that until
Brindley acquired the manners and habits of a gentleman he would
have nothing to do with him. It seems Brindley had insinuated
that Owen’s behavior as a husband was not above suspicion. Brind-
ley declared he had the proof, but his charges were proved false
by Owen’s followers.

Unfortunately for Owen, he weakened in his resolution not to
meet Brindley. In 1841 he was invited to come to Bristol and de-
bate with Brindley on the subject: “What is Socialism and what
would be the practical effects on Society?” The meetings were
held on January 5, 6, and 7. Once more Owen was compelled to
face the abuse of Brindley, the prejudice of the chairman, and a

hostile audience.

28 See 'TOseussioii Between Mr. Owen and Mr. Brin^ey,” BirmingTu^
Journal^ n.d., cited by the New Moral World, V, 260-262 (February 16, 1839).

224

Bohert Owen

Brindley accused Owen of being an atheist, because he did not
believe in the Bible from cover to cover. He branded Owen's mar-
riage system as a scheme to secure a ''new wife quarterly,” and
then he pinned on Owen the authorship of some passages in reality
taken from Shelley's notes on his Queen Mob . The lines quoted by
Brindley appeared in an appendix to Owen's lectures on marriage,
where they were inserted without his knowledge.^^ They ran as
follows :

Cliastity is a monkish, and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural
temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root of all
domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race to misery,
that some few may monopolize according to law. A system could not well have
been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage.

While the lines from Shelley may have been inserted without
his consent, Owen certainly gave his blessing to the poet’s ideas
on marriage. Thomas Medwin, in his Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley,
writes of going with James Lawrence to the Owenite chapel on
Charlotte Street :

In the ante-room, I observed a man at a table, on which were laid for sale,
among many works on a small scale, this JSisrtory of the Nairsf^ and Queen
Mob, and after the discourse by Owen — a, sort of doctrinal rather than moral
essay, m which he promised his disciples a millennium of roast beef and
f owels, and three or four days^ recreation out of the seven, equal division of
property, and an universality of knowledge by education, — ^we had an inter-
view with the lecturer and reformer, whom I had met some years before at
the house of a Northumberland lady. On finding that I was connected with
Shelley, he made a long panegyric on him, and taking up one of the Queen
Mobs from the table, read, premising that it was the basis of one of his chief
tenets, the following passage ;

How long ought the sexual connection to last? What law ought to specify
the extent of the grievance that should limit its duration? A husband and
wife ought to continue so long united as they love one another Any law that
should bound them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their
affection, would be a moat intolerable tyranny, and most unworthy of
toleration.®^

In tbe end Owen and the socialists were made to look pretty
odious in tbe eyes of the working classes of Bristol. It appeared

See JPubUo Discussion Between John Brindley and Eobert Owen on the
Question, What Is Sodalism , . . .

A work by James Lawrence seeking to establish the supremacy of woman.

Pp. 97-98.

Chanty and Malice 225

that the clergy were most interested in saving the lower orders
from being contaminated by Owen’s heresies.

In those years of the late ’thirties and the early ’forties, Owen
and his little band of missionaries were repeatedly challenged to
public discussions. The clergy led the attack, fired by the example
of the Bishop of Exeter, who stood up in the House of Lords and
denounced Lord Melbourne for presenting Owen to the Queen.

One of the most effective of the social missionaries was Lloyd
Jones, who met Brindley in debate at Macclesfield just before
the affair at Bristol and then again in May, 1841, at Birmingham.
The Birmingham debate was a kind of free-for-all fight staged in
Eyan’s Circus. Jones appears to have given Brindley a severe
drubbing in an atmosphere charged with superheated emotional-
ism. Indeed, the audiences at these ^^publie discussions” were quite
as active as the principals. In a contemporary report of the meet-
ing at Birmingham, we read that the great throng that attended
was ^^steamed to death” when time was called at the finish. The
discussions were in reality sporting events where each side had
its supporters ready to do battle. The social missionaries were
often guarded by their followers and by the police. In many cases
they were brutally beaten and driven from meeting places. While
Owen was in the Potteries in 1840, he was set upon by a mob and
compelled to seek refuge in the house of Enoch Wood of Burslem.

The missionaries were often accused of blasphemy. And of
course there was a law making it a crime to speak ill of the Deity j
therefore, many of the clergy attended lectures given by such men
as Lloyd Jones and Alexander Campbell to catch them in any
overt act. Brindley was particularly inclined to watch Lloyd J ones.
The latter gave a lecture in which he linked Eobert Owen with
Moses, Christ, and Luther. But this was not blasphemy within the
meaning of the law.

The mounting fear of the clergy that socialism, with its attack
upon revealed religion, would wean Englishmen from the Church
reached a climax when Melbourne presented Owen to the Queen.

CHAPTEE XXI

THE MONKEY DRESS AND THE
VIRGIN QUEEN

I N THE MIDST of ecclesiastical “alarums and excursions,” when
churchmen faced socialists in shining armor ready to drive
them from their agelong prerogatives, Owen, the infidel, was
honored by the Prime Minister. He was presented to the young
Queen on J une 26, 1839. There is no evidence to show that Victoria
knew how sympathetic her father was with the philanthropist of
New Lanark ; nor is there any proof that she was aware of Owen’s
generosity to him.

The occasion for the presentation was a petition Owen bore from
the Universal Community Society of Eational Religionists. This
society was the heir and descendant of the Association of AU Classes
of All Nations.

Though Owen was only one of many to be honored that day,
his presentation to the Queen, together with the growing strength
of the socialists, furnished the excuse for a violent criticism of
Melbourne and his government in the House of Lords. The Tory
Bishop of Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, led the attack on Melbourne.
The Bishop was a notoriously reactionary churchman opposed to
all reforms and therefore welcomed the chance to embarrass the
party that had done much to strike at the privileges of the clergy.

On the evening of January 24, 1840, his grace of Exeter opened
fire on Melbourne’s government in the House of Lords. He arose
with a petition in his hand signed by four thousand clergy, mer-
chants, and traders of Birmingham protesting against socialism.
The signers were disturbed over the loose moral principles promul-
gated by Owen and his missionaries. The Bishop in great indigna-
tion turned to the Marquess of Normanby, head of the Home OfiSce,
and demanded that he proceed against the socialists as violators
of the law.

Normanby had already declared that “the socialists had not of-
fended against the law.” But Exeter, apparently determined to
strike at Normanby, persisted in his attack, calling attention to
the law known as the “57th of George III” directed against organi-
zations which sent representatives to meet other bodies. He went

[ 226 ]

227

The Monkey B^'ess and Virgin Queen

on at a great length, quoting from Owen^s writings to prove that
Owen and his followers planned the overthrow of all the existing
institutions, including marriage. Of course Exeter did not fail to
quote Owen’s characterization of marriage as a “satanic institu-
tion,” an “accursed thing,” and a “cunningly devised fable of the
priesthood.”

The Bishop, warming to his subject, gave examples of the com-
plicity of the mayor of Coventry in granting the use of the guild
hall to the socialists but refusing it to Brindley, who was attempt-
ing to stem the tide of the subversive doctrines in Coventry. AIL
this proved to the Bishop that the “Municipal Corporation Keform
bill was a most disgraceful measure.” It had taken the government
of cities and towns out of the hands of a self-perpetuating oligarchy
and made it more democratic.

The Bishop could do nothing about mayors, but he could insist
that appointees of the crown be free from the taint of socialism.
And so he demanded that William Pare, superintendent registrar
of births, marriages, and deaths, no longer “pollute that office,”
Pare was a socialist and warm admirer of Owen; he did not conceal
his sympathy for the cause; and because his office was one under
the control of the Home Office, Exeter and his supporters made
enough clamor to secure his resignation.

The zealous Bishop spared few details in his efforts to move the
government to action against the socialists. At one time in his
speech he read a report from one who had attended a socialist
meeting :

At the Socialists place of meeting, Birmingliam, only so late as Sunday eve-
ning last, the loth of January, the Socialist missionary stationed there thus
spoke of God — ^^What a monstrous God! Who would caU him a just Godf I
say he is a bloody and barbarous God, and we will not serve him.” On Sunday
evening, Nov. 25, 1839, the same missionary at the same place said — ^^Neither
he nor the Socialists, acknowledged that vindictive Being called the Lord of
Hosts ! Preserve us from such a Lord of Hosts.’”-

The Bishop assured the Lords that this specimen of blasphemy
was not the wor<st. He was loath to shock their lordships’ ears by
instances of more obscene blasphemies. He did not explain, how-
ever, that these shocking characterizations of Jehovah might have

^ Hansard’s Tarliamentmy Delates, 3d ser., LI, 523. House of Lords, session
of Priday, January 24, 1840.

228

Bolert Owen

been lifted out of a discussion of the Old Testament, where the
Lord of Hosts often tangled Himself up with very mundane affairs.

In his tirade against the socialists, the Bishop made much of
Melbourne’s encouragement to them by his presentation of Owen
to the Queen. With great unction, he denounced that indiscretion.

Lord Melbourne, in the face of the Bishop’s attack supported by
other churchmen, denounced socialism and excused himself for
having presented Owen to court by declaring that he could not be
responsible for the opinions of everyone he presented to Her Maj-
esty. The easygoing Premier went on to argue that a prosecution
of the socialists might not prove the best course to pursue in stop-
ping their growth.

The Duke of Wellington was inclined to side with the Bishop of
Exeter, but he did not think it the best policy to take extreme meas-
ures against the socialists. He remarked before he sat down that
it appeared Melbourne neither knew Owen nor his doctrines be-
fore he presented him to court and thus had broken a rule of court
etiquette, which provided that no gentleman should present an-
other unless acquainted with him.

‘ Wiscount Melbourne, Oh yes ; I was acquainted with his person.”®

The Duke said he was not aware that the noble Viscount had
ever seen Mr. Owen.

Lord Brougham presented a petition from Owen asking for an
investigation of socialism. Brougham spoke in defense of Owen’s
character and insisted that he had never heard any attack upon
marriage, property, or religion by Owen.

His Lordship’s memory was at fault here, for he must have been
very much aware of what Owen said on the memorable evening in
the City of London Tavern when he denounced all three institu-
tions. But Brougham was Owen’s friend though not his disciple
by any means.

The Bishop of Exeter and his colleagues had another session in
the House of Lords on the subject of Owen and the socialists. There
were more allusions to ‘^chilling blasphemies” and more cuts at
Melbourne for his encouragement of that “unhappy man,” Owen.
The Prime Minister found himself compelled to berate the socialists
with great gusto. But he stood his ground on the inadvisability of
starting prosecutions against them and argued that the churchmen

^ IMd.j 546. House of Lords, session of Friday, January 24, 1840.

229

The Monkey Dress and Virgin Queen

by their publicity of socialism were presenting Owen again to the
court. In the end, after the bishops had spent their fire, the Lords
agreed upon an inquiry. But the easygoing Prime Minister did
nothing, thus living up to his philosophy and reputation.

Eobert Owen and the socialists had indeed aroused the fears of
the clergy. Already the Church had been subjected to a number
of reforms very much overdue, and the radical members of Parlia-
ment demanded more Not a little of the vehemence that Phillpotts,
Bishop of Exeter, expressed against socialism was due to fear that
Parliament might go still further in cleaning up the abuses within
the Church. The clergy must be made to appear the protector of
popular morality. But for one word of solicitude he expressed for
the spiritual welfare of the people, he spoke ten to indicate his
dislike for the liberals who had insisted upon a more efficient
Church.

Owen had every right to speak of the priesthood as parasitic.
The enormous revenues drawn by a few higher churchmen were a
scandal known to all men. Horace Walpole in his History of Eng-
land from 1815 wrote of the findings of the Ecclesiastical Commis-
sion in 1836 :

The inquiries of the Commission established the fact, which had previously
been surmised, that the net revenues of the Church amounted to nearly
£3,500,000 a year. The gross annual income of the 27 individuals who consti-
tuted the Episcopate amounted to £150,000; the revenues of the Cathedral
establishments absorbed a further £217,000; while the 10,700 beneficed clergy,
who carried on the real work of the Church, received only £3,050,000 among
them. But these figures only imperfectly illustrated the unequal manner in
which the wealth of the Church was distributed. It was admitted by the Com-
missioners that Durham was worth £15,800, Canterbury £17,000, London
£12,200, Ely £11,500, and Winchester £10,700 a year, while critics who wrote
with less kindly feelings towards the Church placed the revenues of these sees
at far higher sums, and declared that the smaller estimates had only been ar-
rived at by ignoring much of the valuable property which the bishops really
possessed.®

In order that some of the bishops who were not so fortunate in
their revenues should have supplemental incomes, a most wide-
spread system of pluralities grew up. Many high ecclesiastical of-
ficers held livings or benefices for which they gave no services
whatever hut drew fat stipends, nevertheless. Revenues that should

= Vol. V, 256.

230

Eoberi Owen

have gone to the working clergy found their way into the pockets
of a few who did little or nothing.

Reforms came in 1836 and the years following, when a better
distribution of the Church revenues was accomplished ; but many
other abuses persisted. The Ecclesiastical Courts with all of their
privileges and anomalous practices lasted until 1860, and Dis-
senters continued to be barred from the great universities.

In the face of so many evils and so much spiritual indifference,
it is small wonder that dissent and rationalism made their way in
Britain. Owen’s rationalism was not always discreet, but it was
never bitter nor altogether unfair. Sometimes his missionaries went
beyond the bounds of good taste, as might be expected from men
overzealous in a cause.

Owen’s instructions to them, however, were truly filled with the
spirit of charity. He admonished them not to engage in contests
with those who held the old errors and prejudices. But they must
put before them “calmly and mildly” the “self-evident truths”
of their science.

“By attacking error in any other manner, or in any other spirit,
you violate your own principles, and act in opposition to your reli-
gion of charity,” Owen told his missionaries. “The period for these
religious contests has already ceased with all minds approaching
rationality. The parties who will now desire them have had their
feelings made too irritable and diseased to be benefitted by such
contests. You will therefore, apply to these deluded and deceived
parties the same undeviating kind treatment that judicious physi-
cians adopt to their patients, who are not in a sane or sound state
of mind.”^

The whole kingdom reverberated with protesting voices over the
presentation business. Clergymen preached sermons on it, and
newspapers and journals carried articles running into long col-
umns railing against the iniquity of presenting Owen, the infidel,
to the Virgin Queen.

The Manchester Chronicle felt that the Prime Minister was
truckling to the radical faction :

How much longer are these insnlts to the religious feeling of the nation to
be tolerated t Is this the price of the support of the low Badical faction in the

*“Mr. Owen to the Social Missionaries,^^ New Moral World, VI, 593-597

/Tnltrl.Q ^ ^

The Monkey Dress and Virgin Queen 231

House of Oommous? — or is it a cool premeditated insult to tlie Ciiristiaii people
of tMs land?®

Tile Manchester Courier was still more Yehement in denouncing
Melbourne as ''degenerate/’

Tlie premier of England; tlie Chaperon of a notorious infidel in the court of a
young Queen! What, past all shame, my lordf If it is so, why not boldly play
your part at once; openly scoff at common decency, and avow yourself the
enemy of every moral and religious principle.**

The Times printed an article taken from Britannia in w’hieli
Owen was spoken of as a "shrewd scoundrel.” This characterization
came after comment on the court episode.'’

A few weeks later The Times wrote in the following vein :

We have also a word or two to say in regard to Owen's alleged benevolence,
which the Marquis of Hormanby thought fit to insinuate was practiced by him
^'to excess." That this egotistic old Welchman has spent a deal of money in the
diabolical attempt to Owemse the community, we do not mean to deny ; but
where did that money come from, and under w^hat understanding did he receive
it** When Owen, who originally had scarcely a shilling of his owm, married Miss
Dale, of Glasgow, with whom he obtained a large fortune, he was a rigid
orthodox Dissenter. In virtue of his religious profession alone he inherited the
immense funds of David Dale, his father-in-law, who, had he entertained the
slightest anticipation of Owen's apostaey, would sooner have engulfed them in
the ayde.®

After commenting on the horror Dale would have felt if he had
known of the prostitution of his property, The Times wound up
with this jab at Owen : "What is called Owen’s benevolence, there-
fore, is substantially a breach of trust.”®

The same charges appeared in Granfs London J ournal with the
addition of a description of Owen as he appeared before his audi-
ences dressed in “a fashionable pea green coat, a fancy waistcoat,
etc. . . .”

The New Moral World emphatically denied the "pea green coat”
charge, declaring that Owen always wore black.’®

date given, cited in ^^Mr, Owen at Court," New Moral World, VI, 601—
602 (July 13, 1839).

See The T%mes (London), January 8, 1840.

®No date given. Cited by “The *^Times' and Mr. Owen," New Moral World,
¥11,1120-1121 (February 22, 1840).

m%d,

^^See “Attack on Mr. Owen's Character, by ^Grant's London Journal,'"
New Moral World, VII, 1281-1282 (May 2, 1840).

232 Robert Owen

Owen answered the accusation about Ms use of the Dale fortune
in his Manifesto:

Whatever fands I may have expended, with the view of emancipating the
world from ignorance, poverty, division, sin, and misery, I had previously
earned by my own well-directed industry; and instead of gaining wealth by
my marriage — as the Times newspaper falsely, in every particular, states — I
expended many thousand pounds of my own property, after the death, of Mr.
Bale, my father-in-law, in keeping the family which he left, while they were
young and unprotected, and for which I was never repaid, nor expect repay-
ment.

This attack upon Owen’s integrity was only a sample of the mud
hurled at him in those years when he was under the fire of the
Church.

Sermons were preached against him, the same man who had once
dined with the lords of the Church. And even the dissenting
preachers found him dangerous. One preacher in particular, John
Eustace Giles, a Baptist, delivered three lectures against socialism
at Leeds. Giles declared that he had approached the study of so-
cialism with a tolerant attitude, but he soon found m his perusal
of socialist pamphlets ^^so many impious and licentious principles ;
so many hypocritical pretenses, notwithstanding, to virtue and
philanthropy; so many apologies for crime; so much inveterate
hatred to civil government ; so many artful contrivances to ensnare
the superficial by crude metaphysical subtleties, the indolent by
promises of luxury without labour, and the sensual by a perpetual
eulogy of the animal appeUtes, and the prospect of»a Mohomedan
Paradise, as awakened in my mind a detestation of the system to
which I was previously a stranger

While the storm was at its height, Owen issued a manifesto giving
his position on the presentation affair :

And now for my presentation to her Majesty. May I ask, wbo was the party
most honoured on this occasion? — ^the man of nearly seventy years, who had
spent more than a half a century in collecting rare wisdom, solely that he might
apply it for the benefit of his suffering fellow-creatures, and who, that he
might effect future important objects for the ignorant and degraded race of
man, submitted to cover himself with a monkey-like dress and bend the knee
to a young female, amiable no doubt, but yet inexperienced — or the minister,
who introduced [induced] him to undergo this necessary form of etiquette, and

J. E. Giles, Socialism as a Beligious Theory Irrational and Absurd , . . .
Preface of First Lecture.

233

The Monkey Dress and Virgin Queen

afterwards, in a speech, containing much real nonsense, shrunk from def ending
that act of his own — an act which will, perhaps, yet prove to have been the
best and most important act of his administration — or the exalted young lady
to whom age bent its knee? I deem it no honour to be presented to any human
being, trained and educated irrationally as all have been.^

Owen had issued a proclamation on J anuary 1, 1840, announcing
the millennium for the forthcoming year. It was to be the year when
the poor were to find plenty by following the way of the New Moral
World. But the year passed without that event transpiring. In fact,
the prophet found the poor and lowly less disposed to listen to the
words of truth than ever before.

One Monday in June of 1840, Owen, accompanied by Alexander
Campbell, one of the social missionaries, was set upon by a mob at
Burslem in Strafiordshire. He had attempted to lecture in the face
of opposition aroused by a handbill circulated in the town before
his scheduled evening lecture. The bill indicated the nature of the
grievances against Owen :

OWEN AGAIN! at Daleball. Mr Owen, u/ier being driven out of Newcastle
and Stoke, is coming here to night, at six o^clock, to propagate his BLAS-
PHEMOUS PRINCIPLES. Will you have Mm after Triday mghfs exposure.
If not, ASSEMBLE before the Meeting, in a peaceable and orderly manner;
and respectfuUy, but firmly and decidedly, declare this Poison shall no more
be retailed among us.^®

On this particular occasion, Owen was saved from the roughness
of the mob by being spirited away by constables to the home of
Enoch Wood.

There were many that might be counted as Owen^s friends who
did not like his antireligious attitude. Some of them wrote letters
to him protesting against what they chose to call his ^'infidelity.”

Kichard Oastler, who saw eye to eye with Owen on factory legis-
lation, was plainly grieved at his religious heresies :

I know, my dear friend, that you wish me weU-— ^^Yet one thing thou laekest.
Thou has indeed sold all and given to the poor.’' But “thou has taken away my
Lord and I know not where thou hast laid him.

^“Manifesto .of Robert Owen, the Biscgrerer and ^ounto of tte Rati^al
System of Society, and of the Rational Religion,” New Moral World, VII,

..d Mr, A.

hitler to Eobert Owen, October 19, 1836, in Eobert
Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manchester CoUeetion.

234

Bohert Owen

Owen paid scant heed to such protests. Oastler and his other
friends, in his opinion, were simply mistaken and benighted, as
were those who chased him through the streets. Every day that
he lived he felt the bitter resentment of the clergy and the religious
interests.

The townspeople of Leeds called a meeting for the relief of the
poor sometime in the latter part of 1839. Owen heard the news in
London and started north in great haste accompanied by Fleming
and Hobson. So great was his anxiety to participate in the meeting
that he traveled night and day, sleeping only five hours in two days.
But when they reached the courthouse, where the meeting was tak-
ing place, the clergy present objected to Owen’s participation on
the grounds that he was not an inhabitant of Leeds.

Owen was armed with a set of propositions which he insisted
upon presenting to the meeting. And in spite of the gentle protests
of a Mr. Baines, who was anxious for harmony, Owen rose to pre-
sent his plan or propositions for permanent relief of the poor. No
sooner had he gained his feet than the gentlemen of the cloth set
up a great hissing and yelling, with the result that Owen sat down.
In the end, the mayor decided that Owen should not be heard be-
cause he was not an inhabitant of Leeds.^®

A few days later, Owen called his own meeting and put through
his propositions for the relief of the poor of Leeds, a compromise
over the plans presented by Owen at a much earlier time. In his
Leeds plan, he said nothing about self-supporting communities.
But he did lay down the principle that the unemployed would be
able to support themselves by working one-fourth of their time and
have enough surplus to repay the capital with interest used to em-
ploy them.

Some of the other principles are of peculiar interest to us now.
For instance, the unemployed should not be kept in idleness unless
they were unable to work, and they should be put to the task of
creating the first necessities of life for themselves and their fami-
lies. Their expenses, Owen held, should be kept at the lowest amount
possible with due regard for good health. The capital necessary to
make the unemployed productive was to be gained by mortgaging
the poor rates for ten years.

^®See ^^BreaMng up tke System. What ISText?^^ Mew Moral World, VII,
1001-1002 (January 4, 1840).

235

The Monkey Dress and Y irgin Queen

Owen could not resist tlie opportunity to whack away at the eco-
nomic system where the increased productive power of labor
brought only distress and want/®

And so Owen looked upon all of his practical schemes as mere
makeshifts. The whole irrational society must be scrapped to make
way for a new one.

Owen being nearly seventy years old, it was high time that he
withdrew from the field of violent controversy and settled down
in the quiet gardens of reflection and ease. But the fiery spirit of
the crusader still blazed within Mm. He traveled to America deter-
mined to settle the Oregon boundary dispute. At Queeiiwood he
sought vainly to build the ideal city of the New Moral orld. ‘When
the Eevolution of 1848 shook the thrones of Europe, he was ready
with the blueprints for the building of a new order. And he sent a
never-ending stream of letters to those high in political office beg-
ging them to proclaim the new day.

See ''Adoption of Mr. Owen’s Views by a Public Meeting in Leeds/’ Xew
Moral World, VII, 1012-1014: (January 11, 1840).

CHAPTER XXII

THE ETEENAL VISION

T he dream of creating an ideal eoramnnity never faded from
Owen and his disciples. As the Universal Community Society
of Rational Religionists increased in numbers and established
branches, the old urge to form a community seized hold of them.
In the fall of 1839, the society leased an estate of 533 acres at
Tytherly called Queenwood.

The story of Queenwood reads very much like the history of
New Harmony. There were too many people for the accommoda-
tions, and the people who came were apparently not fitted for the
work to be done But it also differed in some respects from the New
Harmony adventure. A spacious building was erected at a very
heavy expense to house the members of the colony. This was done
under the governorship of Owen himself, who was elected to that
office by the Congress of the Rational Religionists. Owen, having
dictatorial powers conferred upon him, proceeded to the most
extravagant expenditures in the erection of buildings and improve-
ment of grounds. Some money had been raised as the result of the
activities of the Home Colonization Society, organized by Owen
for the purpose of backing the colony. A few wealthy men such as
William Galpin and Frederick Bate gave comparatively large
sums, but the money soon sank out of sight in Owen’s endeavor to
construct a community that would be indeed the “Commencement
of the Millennium.”

By the spring of 1842, when the congress of the society met, the
affairs of the colony were brought under review. While the finan-
cial position of the enterprise was far from satisfactory, the mem-
bers of the congress were hopeful of ultimate success. It was
necessary, however, to dismiss the whole staff of missionaries in
order to cut down expenses.^

Owen continued to spend money without any regard for the
inevitable day of reckoning. It came in July of 1842, when the con-
gress once m ore assembled to deal with the sad state of the finances

1 See “Proceedings of the Seventh Anmial Congress of the Universal Com-
Eational Eeligionists,” New MdraX World, X, 381-392
(May 28, 1842). ’

[ 236 ]

The Eternal Yision 237

at Queenwood. The enterprise was deep in debt^ and the buildings
and improvements already started needed money to complete them.

While Owen was not exactly under fire, he felt it necessary to
make a very long speech of justification for his management of
the place. He had hoped for support that never materialized, and
being oversanguine and unchecked by anyone, he brought the
colony to near ruin. Under the circumstances there was only one
thing to do • resign from the governorship. And he did that with-
out protest.

The colony carried on limpingly for three years more. Owen re-
sumed the governorship in 1843 and continued his reign of extrava-
gance and mismanagement. The climax came in the congress of
1844, when a rebellion against Owen was staged in the society. The
congress for the first time refused to elect Owen chairman of the
meeting and passed resolutions curtailing his power. Owen declared
that he would not be subjected to dictation and offered his resigna-
tion as governor of Harmony, as Queenwood was called, and as
president of the Eational Society. Much to his surprise, the con-
gress accepted his resignation; and now, for the first time, Owen
found himself no longer the controlling head of the organization
he had founded.'' Though he had been dictatorial and at times
difficult to work with, he was generally respected and loved.

The new management of Harmony found itself in great difficul-
ties. And in spite of drastic economies, the colony, unable to escape
from the burden of debt, finally passed out of existence in 1845.

It was Owen’s last community. He had exhausted his funds en-
tirely and henceforth lived on $1,800 a year sent to him from his
children in America. Eobert Dale Owen wrote to his father in 1844,
apparently before the latter sailed for America, and suggested a
plan for taking care of his father’s financial needs. He expanded
a debt due the father from $3,200 to $20,400 and declared that he,
Eobert Dale, and Eichard agreed to convey 7,500 acres of land to
a trustee to be sold as soon as possible, the funds to be invested
at six per cent or six and one half per cent for the benefit of the
father. He added that if Eobert Fauntleroy, husband of Jane,
agreed they would make it $30,000." This arrangement appears to
have been carried out.

^ See ^^Meeting of Congress,” l^ev) MotoZ World, XII, 377—379.

3 See letter of Robert Dale Owen to Robert Owen, September 18, 1844, in
Mdb^rt Owen Corres'pond^nce, MSS, Manchester CoUeetion.

238

Robert Owen

Owen sailed to America in the fall of 1844, where he visited his
children in New Harmony and gave lectures in the old manner,
although he was now seventy-three years old. As in 1824, Owen
wrote and published an address to the people of the United States.
He explained that he came to reestablish the good feeling between
the United States and Great Britain which it had been his lot to
promote after 1830. It will be recalled that he visited President
Jackson and Secretary Van Buren before he left America in 1829
and sought to bring about better relations between the two coun-
tries.

Owen was mindful of the acuteness of the situation arising over
the Oregon controversy. His son, Bobert Dale, now a representa-
tive in Congress, had kept him informed of the position of the
United States. Sometime before he sailed for America, Owen proph-
esied that the United States and Great Britain would go to war
over Oregon. Writing in the New Moral World, he declared that

thousands and tens of thousands of lives may be slaughtered, and millions
upon millions of the wealth of both empires, be far worse than merely wasted
or squandered ; and this merely for the possession of some parcel of land called
Oregon, in the far-west, while both empires already possess millions upon mil-
lions of miles of land, of which they know not how to make any rational use.'*

After Owen’s arrival in America, the presidential election was
decided with James Polk, a definite expansionist, victorious over
Clay. The cry now went up in America of ^^54° 40'^ or fight.”

Owen went home to England during the summer of 1845 but
came back after a few weeks filled with the peace-making fervor.
He stayed on through the fall and winter much agitated over
the course the controversy was taking. His son, Robert Dale,
was also deeply concerned and showed his loyalty to the country
of his adoption by making a speech in the House of Representatives
in January, 1844, attacking the aggressive policy of Great Britain.
In the spring of 1846, Owen journeyed back to New York for a
passage home to England. Just before he sailed, a letter came to
him from his son counseling that he place before the British cabinet
the urgency of settling upon the forty-ninth parallel at once as the
boundary. Bobert Dale wrote that “Webster made one mistake
when he said public opinion is settling down on 49°. The truth is,

* ^Tresideut’s Address ou the luereasing Absurdity, Insanity, and Madness
of the British and North American Governments and People , New Moral
World, XII, 293 (March 9, 1844).

The Eternal Tision

239

it has settled down on it, and will settle away from it again, if that
which ought to be done is not done quickly/’®

No sooner had Owen landed than he sought and gained an inter-
view with Lord Aberdeen, foreign secretary. Owen laid before him
information given by his son and urged haste in settling the dis-
pute. Owen also wrote a letter to Peel explaining the dangers and
difSculties in delay. In one part of the letter he took pains to em-
phasize the good work he had done for peace and the influence he
possessed in Washington :

In my recent interview with Lord Aberdeen he appeared to forget the entire
change of feeling m 1830 in favour of this country with the American G-overn-
ment, and still less to be aware of what I have done in Washington and over
the United States during the present Congress in favour of peace with this
country.®

Peel acknowledged Owen’s letter but refused to see him. He
wrote that Owen’s communication added nothing that Her Maj-
esty’s government did not know about the question, and he could
not see any advantage in meeting Owen himself.'^ A few days later
Peel again wrote to Owen. This time he was almost sharp in his
refusal to bring Owen into the Oregon question. He insisted that
'^no public advantage would be gained by Owen’s authorized inter-
ference in the matter.”®

Owen wrote more letters, but he was never able to get near Peel,
nor did he succeed in seeing Aberdeen again.

Summer came. P eel went down to defeat before a combination
of Tories, Irish members, and radicals ; Bussell came in with Lord
Palmerston, the bold one, at the Foreign Office. But meantime,
Aberdeen offered to settle on the basis of the forty -ninth parallel,
and the Americans accepted.

Owen, however, insisted upon seeing Palmerston and was granted
an interview on August 7, 1846.

This closed Owen’s career as a self-appointed diplomat. Nat-
urally, he thought his efforts had brought about the peaceful
settlement, and he wrote this episode down in the list of his accom-
plishments.

! ^Rohert Owen Correspondence, MSS, Manebester Collection.

® May, 1846, ilid.

See letter of May 11, 1846, iMd,

240

Uoberi Owen

Peace was not the only object of Owen’s visit to America in 1844.
The old urge to convert America to the rational way of life was
strong within him Once more, as in the earlier visit twenty years
before, he called on John Quincy Adams in Washington. That
venerable champion of freedom, now past seventy-seven years of
age but still fighting on against slavery, received Owen one morn-
ing in December of 1844.

After Owen had departed, Adams wrote in his diary that Owen
was

a speculative, scheming, mischievous man. He had then succeeded in accumu-
lating a large fortune by forming a community at Lanark, in Scotland, con-
sisting of poor laborers, but who were said to prosper into competency and
affluence and contentment, while they made his fortune. But he was ambitious
of working his system upon a larger scale; and he came to this country full of
the scheme of new-modelling human society. He formed an establishment in the
State of Indiana, named New Harmony, and delivered discourses on the new
organization of society, and trumpeted abroad his Utopia, till it fell into rum.
His establishment was left a wreck, and he went back to his own country, to
practice dupery again there.®

It is evident that Adams did not understand what Owen had
done at New Lanark. He believed it to be a communistic enterprise.
But in spite of this harsh judgment of Owen, Adams consented to
receive him again.

Owen came to see Adams on the morning of December 6, when
he gave more of his plan to revolutionize the world. Adams wrote of
this visit :

Mr. Eobert Owen came again this morning, and mesmerized me for the space
of an hour and a half with his lunacies about a new organization of society
under the auspices of the two most powerful nations on the face of the globe —
Great Britain on the Eastern and the United States on the Western Hemi-
sphere. The materials, he says, are abundant, and the arrangements are aU of
simple and easy execution. He has prepared a plan in which all the details
are set forth with the minutest accuracy. It is now in the hands of Mr. Paken-
ham, but he will ask him to return it, and will communicate it to me for my
examination. It is a plan for universal education, for which the Smithsonian
Pund may provide the means without interfering at all with my views. After
the establishment of the system, there will he no war, and no such thing as
poverty. Universal competency will be the lot of all mankind, and want will be
unknown.

All this I had heard twenty-five years ago, and the humbug is too stale.^®

® Memoirs, XII, 110.
117.

The Eternal Vision 241

Adams has an entry in his Memoirs that Owen called upon him
in the morning of December 30. This time he brought a booh for
Adams to read. It was a work on community building. Owen had
already given him a manifesto, which Adams described as

a farrago of confused, indefinite ideas, tKe only clear and distinct proposition
in wMcli is the formation of a community in or near Washington, to revolu-
tionize the world, from a world of wretchedness and bad principles, to a world
of wealth ad libitum, of peace, of plenty, and of love, without religion; to
begin which considerable funds will be required, and an appropriation of not
less than three millions of dollars.^

There were many other visits. Owen persuaded Adams to request
the House for the use of its hall, where he wanted to give lectures
on his system. But Adam’s motion was lost, chiefly due, he thought,
to the fear of the ^^slave mongers” that letting the hall be used for
such a purpose would set a bad precedent which might be taken
advantage of by abolitionists to hold meetings in the same place.
Opposition also came from the Whigs, who, according to Adams,
were opposed to Owen and his projects."^

Owen finally brought a memorial to Adams, asking that he pre-
sent it to the House. It was a request that Owen might be given an
opportunity to present three lectures before the Senate and House.
The first lecture was to be given in the Senate chamber and the
second in the House of Representatives, but Adams did not state
where Owen planned to give the third.

Adams consented to do this for Owen but balked at the sugges-
tion that he permit his name to be attached to the request as en-
dorsing Owen’s system.

'T told him that I could not permit the introduction of my name,”
Adams related, “and that if I should it would of itself be fatal to
his application.’’^

But in due course of time, the application was denied, as might
be expected, and Owen lost another opportunity to explain his
views.

Adams had pronounced Owen a humbug, but nevertheless he
gave liberally of his time to Owen and sought to arrange for him a
hearing before his colleagues in Congress. Perhaps Adams wrote

md., 133
^ See Md.j 142.
156.

242

Robert Owen

more sharply than he felt. Indeed, his exterior was brusque and
hard, but he possessed a tolerant nature that prompted him to
give every man a hearing. He must have sensed in Owen a man
devoted to the improvement of humanity but mistaken in the means
of its attainment.

Owen on this visit to America found the disciples of Fourier in
the field. As might be surmised, this utopian was not altogether
to Owen’s liking. He had told Adams that Fourier was but a clerk
in a commercial office and unacquainted with the great world about
him. But Owen was publicly more charitable and took the pains
to visit Brook Farm, which had gone over to Fourier’s way of life.

Marianne Dwight, writing from Brook Farm, gave a picture of
Owen as he appeared to her one Sunday in May of 1845 :

My dear friend,

Today I have wished for you to enjoy with us a most delightful visit from
Eobert Owen. Never was I so agreeably disappointed in any one. The old man
has a beautiful spirit, of infinite benevolence, — really love and reverence
him. He is 74, full of energy and activity, very courteous, attends carefully to
every little etiquette, pats the children on the head and has a smile and a
pleasant word for all. Last evening he gave us a lecture on socialism and an-
other today, I^m astonished at his views, to find that we differ much in specu-
lations and in details, yet we have one and the same object, and can meet on
common ground. After his lecture he gave us an account of his experiment at
New Lanark which he carried on with 2000 persons for 30 years, and then left
in the care of others. These people were of the very dregs of society when he
took them, — now they are mentioned in statistics, as being the most moral
population of G-reat Britain. The whole story was very interesting, — so was
his account of the Eapp community. I have always associated his name with
New Harmony, but he says this was conducted by people who understood not
his prmciples, after he had finished Mr. Ripley rose and paid him a very hand-
some tribute, inviting him to be with us whenever he could, and expressing our
senee of the honor we felt he had conferred upon us — ^proposed “Robert Owens,
as a sentiment, wishing he might always enjoy in his own mind that sublime
happiness that will one day be the portion of the human race. I wish I could
see you and tell you of this interesting forenoon. He expressed himself much
pleased with our experiment, and wondered at our success — ^is going to Eng-
land, to return here in September. He has taken the commonsense path to
Association.^'^

There were visits and lectures in New York City, where Owen
was received with great acclaim by socialists. The New York Herald

May, 1845, in Marianne Dwight, Letters from Brook Farm, 1844-^1847,
pp. 94-95.

The Eternal 'V%s%on

243

gave Mm more than passing notice, thongh it did not always take
Mm very seriously. By 1847 Owen was back in England ready to
play a part in the revolutions of the following year.

Queenwood was no longer a colony. The New Moral World had
passed into other hands. The Society of Eational Religionists be-
came known as the Rational Society and then disappeared as a
national group. Local organizations of rational and friendly socie-
ties took its place. Militant socialism with community building as
the goal died out. But Owen lived on dreaming of the millennium.

While he dreamed of the perfect society, a more practical or-
ganization came into being. The Rochdale Society of Equitable
Pioneers was chartered in 1844 to carry on cooperative production
and distribution for the benefit of its few members. In the same
year it opened a store at Rochdale with a capital of £28 contributed
by the 28 pioneer weavers.

Their early aims were very much the same as those set forth
by the cooperative societies of the twenties. They planned on
putting their unemployed members out on land or at work in their
own shops ; nor did they forget the educational side of the pro-
gram. But most of what they planned never came to pass. The
little store for the sale of provisions and clothing was the part
of their list of aims that grew and grew into the vast wholesale
and retail cooperative business that runs into hundreds of millions
of pounds yearly.

The revolutions of 1848 gave Owen a chance — a last chance — ^to
make his communities a reality. Still a crusader, he moved on
Paris, holding meetings and distributing pamphlets. The national
workshops came. For a time it looked as if a new day had dawned,
but reaction set in with Napoleon III riding high and mighty.

Owen again returned to England to commune with the spirits
of the great ones of the earth who had passed on before. To the
living he repeated his old messages through the medium of journals
and letters. At his age there could be nothing new. Over and over
again this kindly old man called upon men to live rationally.

CHA^TEE XXIII

THE MILLENNIUM

T he passing of “forty-eight” marked a new day for Britain.
The city streets no longer echoed to the sound of the marching
Chartists The cries of the hungry ceased ; bread and cheese
were to be had in plenty. Mills and factories rolled out goods for
the ready markets of the world now open to Britons. Gone were
the dark days of the long depression. Only the distant clash of
arms on the Varna and in the Crimea disturbed the serenity of
the Victorians.

“Mr. Owen of New Lanark,” very far in years, satin Cox’s Hotel
in London and wrote letters to Prince Albert and Napoleon III.
So persistent was Owen that at length he drew a reply from Albert
to the effect that henceforth he must address his communications
to the head of the government — ^the prime minister. He spun out
almost endless addresses to the high and low, later to appear in
one of his journals. Owen was never long without a means to pub-
licize his views. But in those last years he had nothing to equal the
Crisis or the New Moral World. Prom 1850' to 1852, Eohert Owen’s
Journal^ “Explanatory of the Means to Well-Place, Well-Employ,
and Well-Educate the Population of the World,” was the vehicle
used to carry along his ideas. Then came the Rational Quarterly
Review, followed by the New Existence of Man upon Earth and,
lastly, the Millennial Gazette.

There were always congresses — congresses to inaugurate the
millennium Owen’s birthday, May 14, was the favorite date. In
1858 on that day, he called together the faithful to “New Form
Man and New Form Society.” The notice of the meeting ran thus :
“Glad Tidings to the Human Eace, and No Mistake This Time.”

In these last years, Owen sought to come in contact with the
great souls that had gone on before. Spiritualism came to be
the creed of thousands in America and Europe by the middle of the
century. It was not merely the recourse of elderly people in their
dotage but of the young and vigorous as well. Mediums multiplied
who were shrewd and plausible. They performed such marvels of
table tapping and rapping as to convince their clients that they
indeed had made connection with the other world.

[ 244 ]

The Millenmum

245

Owen consulted an American medium by tbe name of Mrs.
Hayden, wbo placed Mm at once in communication witb President
Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, His Eoyal Highness the Duke of
Kent, and Grace Fletcher. Grace Fletcher had been one of Owen^s
most devoted disciples. All of these spirits confirmed Owen in his
belief that the world must be changed to a rational one to save it
from destruction,

Owen told in his journal, the Rational Quarterly Review, how
he became convinced of the truth of spiritualism :

While conversing with Mrs. Hayden, and while we were both standing before
the fire talking of our mutual friends, suddenly raps were heard on a table
at some distance from us, no one being near to it. I was surprised; and as
the raps continued and appeared to indicate a strong desire to attract atten-
tion, I asked what was the meaning of the sounds. Mrs. Hayden said they
were made by spirits anxious to communicate with some one, and she would
enquire who they were. They replied to her, by the alphabet, that they were
friends of mine who were desirious to communicate with me. Mrs Hayden
then gave me the alphabet and pencil, and I found, according to their own
statements, that the spirits were those of my Mother and father. I tested
their truth by various questions, and their answers, all correct, surprised me
exceedingly.^

There were other demonstrations by Mrs. Hayden that left
Owen thoroughly convinced. Nor was he shaken in faith when
Mrs. Hayden’s trick was exposed. He merely turned to other
mediums for messages. It appears that the mediums supplied their
clients with an alphabet and pencil and instructed them to follow
the raps by running their pencil along to the proper letter in the
alphabet. Naturally, when the consultant asked a question he un-
consciously betrayed the answer by pausing before the appropriate
letter. This gave the medium, who was watching the consultant, a
clue as to what letter to rap out.

However, Owen did not let his interest in spiritualism interfere
with the main purpose of his life : the attainment of a rational
society. The spirits were merely invoked to lend support to this
great undertaking.

As the years rolled along, Owen became more and more the
venerable father to a few followers who remained. But many who
did not share his economic and social ideas delighted to honor him.
Among the se was Karl Marx, living in London and working on
126 ( 1853 ).

246

Bolert Owen

that revolutionary book, Das KapitaL According to J ohn Sparge,
Owen was given a party on his eightieth birthday, ^^at which Marx,
Liebknecht, Lessner and several of the Marx circle attended. Marx
was very fond of Owen and generous in his estimate of his char-
acter and work. He admired most [of] all, perhaps, that fine
devotion to truth as he understood it, and disregard of popularity,
which marked Owen’s lif

In 1853 Owen’s friends decided that it would be better for the
aging man if he were removed from London to a place in the
country. Accordingly, this was done by finding him a home at
Park Farm, Sevenoaks. Attended by James Kigby, one of the old
social missionaries, Owen planned great meetings and took short
journeys until the end.

In 1857 the National Association for the Promotion of Social
Science was organized. Owen was very much interested, but ill
health made it impossible for him to attend the first meeting in
Birmingham. However, he sent a number of papers, two of which
were read for him.

In the fall of 1858, the association met at Liverpool. Though
very weak, Owen determined to attend ; and, accompanied by the
faithful Eigby, he made his way to Liverpool. After a rest in bed,
he arose and was dressed by Rigby, though the operation took two
hours. He was then placed in a sedan chair and carried to the
meeting — ^his last meeting.

Holyoake, Owen’s friend, describes what took place at the meet-
ing and after :

Four policemen bore Mm to the platform. It is now a matter of public
history, how kindly Lord Brougham, as soon as he saw his old friend, took
Mm by the arm, led him forward, and obtained a hearing for him. Then
Mr, Owen, in his grand manner, proclaimed his ancient message of science,
competence, and good will to the world. When he came to the conclusion of
his first period, Lord Brougham, out of regard for his failing strength,
terminated it. He clapped his hands, applauded his words, then said, “Capital, '
very good, caMt be better, Mr. Owen! There, that will do.” Then in an under-
tone. “Here, Bigby, convey the old gentleman to his bed.” He was carried
back. As soon as he reached his bed he became unconscious. An hour after
he revived.

“Eigby, Eigby,” he called.

“Yes, Sir — ^here I am ”

“How did I speak f What did I say?”

® John Spar go, Karl Marx, p. 190.

The MMennium

247

'^0, verj well, Sir. I have taken down your words.”

^^Very good, read them to me. Ah, that will do. Very important, very im-
portant.”

For two weeks he kept his bed at the Victoria Hotel. Mr. Eathbone fre-
quently called to inquire after Mr. Owen^s health. Mr. Brown, M. P,, and many
gentlemen, paid him a similar complement. One morning he exclaimed, ^^Eigby,
pack up, we’ll go.”

^^Gro where. Sir — ^to London?”

^^Go to my native place. I will lay my bones whence I derived them.”

Dressings, delays, and carryings brought him to the river. He was conveyed
over. He took the rail to Shrewsbury. Thence a carriage to travel thirty miles
into Wales. When he came to the border line which separates England from
Wales he knew it again. It was more than seventy years since he passed over
it. He raised himself up in his carriage, and gave a cheer. He was on his
own native land once more. It was the last cheer the old man ever gave. He
wanted to persuade Mr. Eigby that he must be sensible of the difference of
the atmosphere. With brightened eyes the aged wanderer looked around. The
old mountains stood there in their ancient grandeur. The grand old trees,
under whose shadow he passed in his youth, waved their branches in welcome.
What scenes had the wanderer passed through since last he gazed upon them !
Manufacturing days, crowning success, philanthropic experiments, public
meetings at the London Tavern, Continental travel, interviews with kings,
Mississippi Valleys, Indiana forests, journeys, labours, agitations, honours,
calumnies, hopes, and never ceasing toil , what world, what an age had inter-
vened since last he passed his native border.

When he reached a beautiful estate he had known in his earlier days, he
said, ^^Eigby we will drive up to the gates, and you ask if Dr. Johns is at
home.” The astonished domestic answered, ‘‘Why, Dr. Johns has been dead
twenty years.” ^'Once a man and twice a child,” was true of Mr. Owen. His
early life had come over him like a flood. He was in the dreamland of his
early days. '^Dead twenty years,” recalled him to the consciousness that death
had gone before him and reaped the field of his youthful memories. Learning
that the lady of the house was a daughter of Dr. Johns, he said, ^^Eigby, go
aud say that Eobert Owen is at the gate.” She no sooner heard that unexpected
name, than she came out to the carriage door, and with a woman’s quickness
saw how it was with the ancient friend of her father. She had him conveyed
into her house and placed by the fire. ''How, Mr. Owen,” she said, "You are
once more in your own country, among old habits and customs, what shall I
get for you?” His answer showed how deeply his childhood days had come
back to him. "Make me some flummery” — ^wheat and milk; the diet of his
father’s table. He partook of it. He hardly ever ate afterwards.

His visit to Newtown was one of curiosity. He arranged to call Mr. Eigby
Mr. Friday, and himself Mr. Oliver, and had themselves so reported at the
Bears Head Hotel. When he was able to go out, he had his carriage stopped
two doors below, at the house of his birth, and sent in Mr. Eigby to buy
two quires of the best note paper, and ask if that was the house in which
Mr. Owen was born. It soon appeared that that fact was known and respected,

248

Robert Owen

and Mr. David Thomas, the occupant, showed Mr. Eigby the room in which
Mr. Owen^s birth occurred. Suspecting the truth, he asked Mr. Bigbj if the
old gentleman in the carriage could be Mr. Owen. Mr. Eigbj, who had no
orders to own it, and too little diplomatic skill to parry a question in
which he was so much interested, neither answered no nor yes, but something
between the two, and Mr. Thomas believed what he was not told. On Mr.
Thomas delivery of the note paper at the carriage window, Mr. Owen, without
speaking, took his hand and shook it warmly twice, and ordered his carriage
to be driven back to Shrewsbury, and thence to Liverpool he went by railway.
Unless for the pleasure of seeing the old country again by passing through
it, and re-appearing in Uewtown as a visitor in his own proper name, one
knows not the purpose of this journey. Mr. Owen had sent a letter to Mr.
David Thomas, of ISTewtown, saying that provided a public meeting could be
convened by the principal inhabitants, he should be happy to proclaim an
important message to the people, be the guest of Mr. Thomas, and sleep
once more in the house of his birth. The ruling passion was strong in death
When he reached Shrewsbury on his return, he went to the Lion Hotel, and
took to his bed again. Drom thence, by request, he was carried to his carriage,
and once more retraced his steps to Newtown. He dwelt by the way upon all
the early scenes of his youth, and pointed out to Mr. Bigby various objects
of interest to him. He entered Newtown now in his own way, and in his own
name. Though he had promised Mr. Thomas to be his guest, he would not
present himself at his house until he was recovered — ^it being contrary to his
ideas of courtesy. He took up his residence at the Bears Head Hotel, two
doors from his birth-place. He slept in room No. 3 ; and died in room No. 14.
He now, desired Mr. Bigby to return to London, and send down Mr. Dale
Owen, and he remained alone at the Beards Head. Mr. Lewis a bookseller in
Newtown, rendered him attentions during several days, which Mr. Owen
valued highly, and Mr. Thomas was assidious in kind offices to him. During
a week he took only sugar and water. Dr. Slyman of Newtown Hall was his
medical attendant. Mr. Owen, though never an abstainer from wine, was
most temperate in his habits j and though most essential to him in his ex-
hausted state, declined to take stimulants now. Dr. Slyman considers that he
might have recovered. Climatic disease, bronchitis being an accompaniment,
is the explanation Dr. Slyman gave me of the immediate cause of his death.
Two or three days before his death Mr. D. Thomas asked Mr. Owen (the
Beet or having called) whether he should invite him up, and whether he
should read to him from the Bible and make some exhortation. Mr. Owen
turned his head and said in his commanding way, No, No. . .

The last day dawned. It was the day Eohert Owen had planned
for a public meeting to reform the edneational system of Newtown.
A numerous and respectable audience of the best citizens would
be there ready for his message. But the great propagandist was

Q-eorge Jacob Holyoake, Life and Last Lays of Moi&rt Owen, pp. 7-9.

The Millennium 249

dying. He had called his last meeting to fight against an irrational
world.

Meantime, Eigby had gone to London in order to bring Eobert
Dale Owen, who was at this time American minister to Naples.
The eldest son arrived at Newtown on the same day that his father
had made the call for a public meeting.

That night he sank rapidly. Holyoake wrote how Owen called
out to ask for the time at 1 :30 a.m. An attendant answered that
it was 1 :30 A.M.; but Owen, his hearing being weak, thought the
attendant said 2 :30. An hour later Owen again inquired the time
and was answered that it was half past two. Another hour passed,
and once more the dying man asked the time. Being told it was
half past three, he replied in his usual gentle, smiling manner,
‘Why, it has been half -past two these three hours.’’"

The end came a few hours later as described by his son :

It is all over. My dear father passed away this morning, at a quarter before
seven, and passed away as gently and quietly as if he had been falling
asleep. There was not the least struggle, not a contraction of a Hmb, or
a muscle, not an expression of pam on his face. His breathing gradually be-
came slower and slower, until at last it ceased so imperceptibly that, even as
I held his hand, I could scarcely tell the moment when he no longer breathed.
His last words, distinctly pronounced about twenty minutes before his death,
were ^^Eelief has come.’^ About half-an-hour before, he said, “Very easy and
comfortable.^^®

They buried him in consecrated ground in the old churchyard
next to the grave of his parents. It was his wish.

^lUd., 10 .

® Letter of Robert Dale Owen to George Jacob Holyoake, November 17, 1858,
in Holyoake, Life and Last Days of Mohert Owen, p. 10

BIBLIOOEAPHY

Peimaby Woeks

EGBERT OWEN'S WRITINGS AND SPEECHES

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Announcing Himself a Candidate to Represent Them in Parliament as
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332-334 (Appendix X), by Robert Owen. Effingham Wilson, London, 1858.

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of January, 1816, at the Opening of the Institution for the Formation of
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C), by Robert Owen. Effingham Wilson, London, 1857.

. Address on Spiritual Manifestations, Delivered ty Boheri Owen at

the Literacy Institution, John Street, Fitsroy Square, on Friday, July, the
27th, 18J6. Clayton and Son, London, 1855.

. “Address, Thursday, August 14, 1817, Delivered at the City of London

Tavern, at a Public Meeting Convened to Consider a Plan to Relieve the
Country from its Present Distress, to Remoralise the Lovf^er Orders, Reduce
the Poor's-Rate, and Gradually Abolish Pauperism with All Its Degrading
and Inurious Consequences.” Life of Bolert Owen, Ia, 92-104 (Appendix
I), by Robert Owen. Effingham Wilson, London, 1858.

. “Address, Thursday, August 21st, 1817, Delivered at the City of Lon-
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August 14th, 1817.” Life of Boheri Owen, Ia, 104-108 (Appendix I), by
Robert Owen. Effingham Wilson, London, 1858.

. “An Address to the Working Classes.” Life of Boheri Owen, Ia, 223-

235 (Appendix P), by Robert Owen. Effingham Wilson, 1858.

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Laws of Human Nature and of Society. Effingham Wilson, London, 1836.

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.Development of Principles and Plans on Which to Fstahlish Self-

Supporting Nome Colonies. Home Colonization Society, London, 1841.

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of All Classes of All Nations,” and a Stranger Desirous of Being Accurately
Informed Bespecting Its Origin and Objects. A. Heywood, Manchester, 1838.

.Lectures on the Marriages of the Priesthood of the Old Immoral

World, Delivered in the Year 1835, before the Passing of the New Mar-
riage Act. Fourth edition. J. Hobson, Leeds, 1840.

. Letter from Mr. Boheri Owen to the President and Members of the

New Yorlc State Convention, Appointed to Bevise the Constitution of the
State, Washington, D.C., 1846.

[ 251 ]

252 Bibliography

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EfS.ngham "Wilson, London, 1850.

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Ia, 21-23 (Appendix G-), by Eobert Owen. Effingham Wilson, London, 1858.

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the Universe, Contrasted with all Eeligions Founded on Human Testimony,
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. ^^Observations on the Cotton Trade of Great Britain, and on the Late

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plication to Parliament for a Eepeal of the Duty on the Importation of
Cotton Wool.” Life of Robert Owen, Ia, 12-21 (Appendix F), by Eobert
Owen. Effingham Wilson, London, 1858.

. ^Troposed Eegulations of Marriage and Divorce under the Eational

System of Society.” Manifesto of Robert Owen, the Discoverer, Founder,
and Promulgator, of the Rational Religion, appendix, by Eobert Owen.,
Sixth edition. Published at the Social Institution, 23 John Street, Totten-
ham Court Eoad, London, 1840.

. ^^Eeport to the Committee of the Association for the Belief of the

Manufacturing and Labouring Poor — ^by Eobert Owen — ^Eeferred to the
Committee of the House of Commons on the Poor Laws. March, 1817.”
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Wilson, London, 1858.

. “Eeport to the County of Lanark, of a Plan for Believing Public Dis-
tress and Eemoving Discontent, by Giving Permanent Productive Employ-
ment to the Poor and Working Classes, under Arrangements which Will
Essentially Improve Their Character, and Ameliorate Their Condition,
Diminish the Expenses of Production and Consumption, and Create Markets

Billiogrciphy 253

Co-extensive witii Production.” L^fe of JRobert Owen, lA, 261-321 (Ap-
pendix S), by Eobert Owen. EfSngbam Wilson, London, 1858.

. The BevoluUon in Mind and Practice of the Human Pace; or the

Coming Change from Irrationality to Nationality. Effingham Wilson, Lon-
don, 1849.

. Bohert Owen Correspondence. MSS. Unbound. Now in the possession

of the Manchester Co-operative Union, Ltd., Holyoake House, Hanover
Street, Manchester, England.

.Bolert Owen’s Journal. Explanatory of the Means to Well-Place,

Well-Employ, and Well-Educate, the Population of the World, 4 vols. (in
one binding), James Watson, London, 1851, 1852.

. Bohert Owen’s Letter to the Senate of the ^8th Congress of the United

States, Eequesting Permission to Deliver a Course of Lectures in Its Cham-
bers, on an Entirely New State of Human Existence. Also, Bohert Owen’s
Letter to the Public, Being Informed by the President of the Senate that,
by Its Eules, It Could Not Be G-ranted for Lectures on Any Subject, or
Permission in This Case Would Be Granted. Also, the concluding part of
Bobert Owen’s Last Lecture of the Course which He Delivered in the City
of Washington. Globe Office, Washington, D.C., 1845.

. Bobert Owen’s Millennial Gazette, Explanatory of the Principles and

Practices by which in Peace, with Truth, Honesty, and Sunplicity, the New
Existence of Man upon Earth May Be Easily and Speedily Commenced.
5 parts. Published by the author at 16 Great Windmill Street, Haymarket,
1856.

.Bobert Owen’s Opening Speech, and His Beply to the Bev. Alex.

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Principles of All Beligions Are Erroneous, and That Their Practice Is In-
furious to the Human Bace. Published for Eobert Owen, Cincinnati, Ohio,
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Between Mr. Bobert Owen and the Bev. J. H. BoebucTc. And an Address
Delivered at the Annual Congress of the ^^Association of All Classes of All
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of the United States, Heads of Departments, Judges of the Supreme Court,
Members of Congress, etc. etc. On the 25th of February, and 7th of March,
1825. Eichbaum and Johnston, Pittsburgh, 1825.

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Owen, Eobeet, and Alekandee Campbell, Debate on the Evidences of Chris-
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“Address to Mr. Owen by the Inhabitants of Hew Lanark Expressive of Their
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Bower, Samuel. Competition in Peril: or, the Present Position of the Owenites
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EEPOETS

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LETTERS

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260 Bibliography

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1829).

NEWSPAPERS

American Mercury (Hartford, Connecticut), Tuesday, October 17, 1826.

Cincinnati Chronicle (Ohio), 1828.

Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), March 6, 7, 15, 21, 24, 25,
26; April 5, 9, 21, 28, 30; May 7, 10; July 4, 1825. July 20, 1829.

Examiner (London), July 5, 1819.

Morning Post (London), July 30, 1817.

New Orleans Argus, January 31, 1828.

New Yorlc Observer, January 7, 21, 1826.

Poulson^s American Daily Advertiser (Cincinnati, Ohio), August 12; Decem-
ber 1, 1825. March 16, 1826.

The Times (London), April 9; May 29; June 25; July 25, 30; August 9, 15,
22; September 10, 1817. October 9, 23; November 6, 1818. July 10; August
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1828. January 5, 8, 19, 25, 28; February 4; April 12, 13; May 20, 1830.
May 25, 1831. January 29, 1834. January 8, 1840.

262

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Beer,, Max. A JSistory of British Socialism. 2 vols. G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., Lon-
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Company, Ltd., London, 1930.

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Packard, Frederick A. A Life of Bohert Owen. Second edition. J. B. Lippin-
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PoDMORE, Prakk. Bohert Owen. 2 vols. Hntehinson and Company, London,
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PERIODICALS

Himes, Norman E. “The Place of John Stuart Mill and of Robert Owen in the
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(September, 1890).

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“Political Demonology.” Quarterly Review, CCXXXVII, 85—100 (January,
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Sbligman, Edwin, R. A. “Owen and the Christian Socialists.” Political Science
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1922).

INDEX

AdamSj Jolm Quiney: receives Owen, 77-78, 95, 99, 240; tries to arrange con-
gressional hearing for Owen, 241-242
Aix-la-Chapelle, Congress at, 80-84; Owen^s memorials to, 82, 84
Allen, William, 26, 28, 40, 43-45, 83, 84
Association of All Classes of All Nations, 211-212, 226
Attwood, Thomas, 60, 191

Bear’s Head Inn, 1, 247, 248

Bentham, Jeremy, 27-28 ; Benthamite creed, 35, 165

Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, 117-118, 120-122

Birth control, 64-66, 67-68

^^Boat-Load of Knowledge,” 108, 115, 125, 126

Braxfield House, 25, 26

Bray, John Erancis, 168

Brindley, John, 208-209, 221-222, 223-224, 225

Brougham, Lord Henry, 16, 41, 56, 58, 180, 213

Camphell, Alexander, 137, 139, 140, 162 ; debate with Owen, 155-161
Chartism, 191, 192, 199. See also Place, Erancis

Child labor, 14-15, 19, 72 ff. ; at New Lanark, 21 ; Peel’s bill, 72 ; Eaetory Act
of 1819, 72-74, 75, 76
Childhood, Owen’s, 1-4
Chorlton Twist Company, 8, 10, 11

Church of England : and education, 16-18 passim, 35 ; Owen’s censure, 35, 49,
229 . ; distribution of revenues, 229-230
City of London Tavern speech, denunciation of religions, 54-56, 61, 125
Clergy, challenge to, 135-137, 139-140 ; blame for evils of marriage, 201
Cobbett, William, 60, 66, 67-68, 165, 176

Oolquhoun, Patrick, statistics on distribution of wealth, 164-165

Combe, Abram, 135, 168, 172-174

Combination Acts of 1799, 19

Community of Equality. See New Harmony

Continental tours, 78-79, 219-220

Cooperative movement: Thompson’s leadership, 166; spread of, 169 ff., 182,
192-193, 199; London Co-operative Society, 169-171; Union Exchange So-
ciety, 171; Third Co-operative Congress, 177; cooperative production, 183;
bazaars, 183 ff.; Grand National Council, 193. See also Labor Exchanges
Cooperative villages, Owen’s plan for, 50 ft , 86—87, 163, 165, 214, ^^Parallelo-
grams,” 52, 53, 60, 86; spade husbandry, 52, 53, 57, 59, 69-70; J. Q. Adams
on, 77-78; dress, 87; government, 87, 88-89; physical education, 89
Corn laws : Eicardo’s anti-corn-law doctrine, 165 ; Owen’s advocacy, 194
Cotton: manufacture, 13; argument for repeal of duties on raw, 72; opposi-
tion of manufacturers to Eaetory Act, 73
Crime, responsibility of society for, 32-33, 34
Crisis, 177, 187, 188, 193, 197-198

Dale, David, 10, 25-26

D’Arusmont, William Phiquepal, 127, 129, 130
Determinism. See Philosophy of circumstance

[ 265 ]

266

Index

Diplomatic activities, Owen’s, 146-147, 150-151, 152-153, 238-239
Disciples, Owen’s, 165 :ff.

Dissenters, and education, 17, 230
Dnnkwater, partnership with Ow^en, 7-8
Dwight, Marianne, picture of Owen, 242

Economic doctrines, Owen’s, 85, 158-159, 162—163, 185 ff- See also Cooperative
villages , Labor exchanges ; Spade husbandry ; Trade-unions
Education: under Church of England, 16-18, 35; Scottish system, 16; un-
endowed schools, 16-17; religious controversy and, 17-18; at New Lanark,
26, 34, 36 , 79-80; Owen’s ideas for national system, 34-35, 49; at New

Harmony, 126 ff. ; Pestalozzi methods, 127; industrial training, 127-128.
See also Institution for Eormation of Character; New Harmony educa-
tional program
Employment agencies, 35
Environment. See Philosophy of circumstance

Assays on the FormaUon of Character, 30-35 yassim; eighteenth-century
creed of happiness, 33

Factory Act of 1819, 72-74, 76

Falla, William, 52, 86. See also Spade husbandry

Feiba Peveli, 117-118

^'Fiv© Fundamental Facts,” 214

Flint, Timothy, 142-143, 155

Flower, G-eorge, 92, 94; description of New Harmony, 98, 132-133

Foster, Joseph, 26, 44, 45

Fourier, Charles, mentioned, 93, 133, 219, 242

Fretageot, Marie Duclos, 94-95, 127, 130, 131

Friends of Truth in Paisley, speech on ethical philosophy, 200-201

Fulton, Bobert, 9

Gentz, debate on the ^^New Social System,” 81
Gibbs, Michael, 26, 44, 45
Godwin, William, 165

Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, 195-197, 199

Harmony, Indiana, 96, 97-99; Owen purchases, 99. See also New Harmony,
Queenwood

Hetherington, Henry, 191, 192, 199
Holyoake, George Jacob, 246-248, 249
Hume, Joseph, 176, 180

Industrial Eevolution, 6, 12-19, 51, 158-159, 162

Infant school: at New Lanark, 33-34, 36, 38-41, 47, 79-80; at New Har-
mony, 126-128 ; separation of children from parents, 128
Influence of Owen in America, 132-133

Institution for the Formation of Character (school at New Lanark) : infant
school, 33-34, 36, 38-41, 47, 79-80; building, 37; Bobert Dale Owen’s de-
scription, 37 ft. ; school for older children, 38, 41-43; teaching methods, 39,
41-43; curriculum, 40-41, 42; Pestalozzi influence, 43; changes after 1824,
48

Index^ 267

Institution of the Industrious Classes, 177
Irish episode, 89-91

Jackson, Andrew, 151-154 passim, 238

Jefferson, Thomas, comment on New View of Society, 100-101
Kent, Edward Augustus, Duke of, 47, 50, 84

Labor. Combination Acts of 1799, 19; pauper labor arrangements, 21; efforts
for shorter working day, 21, 193-194; Owen opposes general strike, 192.
See also Child labor; Trade-unions

Labor exchanges, 86, 134, 168, 182, 183—190, 192; Equitable Labour Exchange,
187 ; causes of failure, 189-190

Labor theory of value, 85-86, 88, 164, 185; labor notes, 86, 131, 134, 183, 184-
185

Lesueur, Charles Alexander, 115, 129

London Co-operative Society, 169-170

Lovett, William, 176, 177-178, 181, 183, 191, 192, 199

Maclure, William, 94-95, 114-115, 123-124, 126, 127-128, 130, 131, 148-149
Macluria, 117-118

Macnab, Henry Grey, report on New Lanark, 47

Madison, James, opinion of Owen, 101-102

Malthus, Thomas Bobert, 61, 62-64, 67, 102, 180-181, 192

Malthusians: oppose Owen^s plans, 54, 61, 62-63, 69-71, 86, 102, 180-181;

Neo -Malthusianism, 67, 68-69, 85, 213
Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 8—9
^^Manufacturers and Mechanics^^ address, 134, 135

Marriage : Owen^s ideas on, 18, 122, 158, 201-210, 222, and divorce, 202, 207-
208

Maix, Karl, admiration of Owen, 246

Melbourne, Lord, 196, 213; presents Owen to Queen, 226, and resulting criti-
cism, 225, 226, 230-231
Mental Independence, Declaration of, 125

Mexico : plan for colony, 145-153 ; correspondence with Bocafuertez, 145-146 ;
request for grant, 146—147, 150; trip to, 147 ff. ; audience with Victoria,
149-150 ; religious objections to plan, 150, 153
Mill, John Stuart, quoted on Owenites, 169-170
Morgan, John Minter, 167-168
Morrison, James, 192, 195
Mudie, George, 166-167, 169

National Association for Promotion of Social Science, 246
National Regeneration Society, 193-194
Neef, Joseph, 127-128
Neo-Malthusianism, 67, 68-69, 85

New Harmony, 95; description, 97, 103-104; members, 103, 104, 108; pre-
liminary constitution, 106; store credit, 106, 108-109; conditions, 108 ff. ;
religious discord, 110 ; criticism of, 110 ff. ; dancing and singing, 112, 123 ;
Community of Equality, 115-116, 121; community of property, 116, 117;
constitution, 116, 117; Owen^s dictatorship, 118-120 passim; regulations,
118; confusion, 119; social life, 120, 121; dress, 120, 123; marriage, 122-
123, failure, 130-131, 133; influence, 131-133

268

Index

New Harmonj educational program, 106, 126,* teachers, 112, 114-115, 127,
129-130,* separation of children from parents, 118, 128; infant school, 126-
128; teaching methods, 126; eurrienlum, 126; industrial training, 127-128;
Pestalozzi methods, 127; School for Adults (older children), 129; break-
down of, 130

New Marmony Gasette, 104, 111, 117, 125, 126, 132

New Lanark: purchase of mill, 10-11; description of town, 20; silent moni-
tors, 20-21, 23; efforts at reform, 21 ff.; housmg, 21-22; liquor problem,
22-23, 36; sale of mill to Owen, 26, 29; education, 26, 28-29, 34-48; mill
profits, 28; Owen sells interest, 48. See also Institution for the Formation
of Oharaeter

New Moral World: [periodical] succeeds Crisis, 197; Boole of the, 199, 201,
213-219; ^^Five Fundamental Facts,” 214; eight ages, 215; eighteen causes
of evil, 216-217 ; reviews of, 217-219
Newspapers: Owen’s opinion of, 179-180; for removal of tax on, 179, 180
Newtown, Wales, 1, 247-248, 249
Nicholas, Grand Duke, 46-47

Oastler, Richard, 193-194, 233-234
O’Brien, James Bronterre, 191, 195, 199
Orbiston Community, 135, 166, 168, 172-174
Oregon controversy, 238
Owen, Caroline Dale, 10-11, 18, 25, 46, 175-176

Owen, Robert Dale: quoted on New Lanark housing, 22; on religion, 23-24;
description of school, 37-43 passim, 46 ; New Harmony Gazette, 111, 132 ;
on New Harmony, 115, 130; Working Men’s Party of New York, 132; on
economic questions, 162-163; on labor exchanges, 186-187, 188; plan for
father’s financial needs, 237; representative in Congress, 238
Owen, William: diary account of trip to America, 93 ff.; at New Harmony,
112

Paisley speech. See Friends of Truth
^^Parallelograms,” 52, 53, 60, 86, 201
Partners of Owen, 26, 36, 44^5

Pears, Thomas, 106-107, 108, 109 ; Sarah, 108, 118-119, 123, 129
Peel, Sir Robert, 14, 72, 212-213, 239
Pelham, William, 108—112 passim
Pestalozzi, influence, 43, 80, 127

Philosophy of circumstance, 25, 42, 112-114, 156 ; criticism of, 113-114
Place, Francis, 19, 30-31, 64-65, 69, 78, 176, 181-182
Play, supervised, 33-34
Pomsett, Joel, 150-151

Poor relief: penal code, 18-19; road work, 19; pauper labor arrangements
with parishes, 21 ; Owen’s program for making labor of idle productive, 35,
51-53; before Congress, 57-59, and criticism, 59-61; poor rates, 51, 52;
Malthus’ overpopulation theory, 62-64 passim; Report to County of Lanark,
85, 89; in Ireland, 89-91; Reform Bill, 190, 191, 192; New Poor Law of
1832, 192 ; proposal for Leeds, 234
Presentation to Queen, 226. See also Melbourne
Private property, 85, 116, 125, 201; Ricardo’s theory, 165

Queenwood (Harmony), 236-237, 243

Index 269

Bapp, Father, and Eappites, 68, 92, 96, 98-99, 103; Economy (new home), 96.

Bee also Harmony
JRaUonal Quarterly JReview, 245

Bational Society (Society of Bational Religionists), 236, 237, 243
Reform Bill, 191—192 passim

Religious controversy: denunciation of religions, 54-56; challenge to clergy,
135-137, 139-140; Campbell-Owen debate, 139-141, 143, 154-161
^^Report to the County of Lanark,^' 85-89, 185
Ricardo, David, 57, 86, 164, 165
Rocafuertez, Vicente, 145-146
Rochdale Society, 243
Romilly, Sir Samuel, 18, 27
Rousseau, influence of, 37, 39, 206

Sabbath observance, 5, 34
Santa Anna, 149, 151-152
Say, Thomas, 114, 127, 129
Schools. Bee Education

Skepticism, 3-4, 5, 25, 58-59, 61, 111, 114, 160; City of London Tavern de-
nunciation of religions, 54-56
Slavery, tolerance of, 137, 147
Smith, J ames E., 192, 195
Spade husbandry, 52, 53, 57, 69-70, 85, 86, 89
Spiritualism, 243, 244-245

Thompson, ‘William, 165-166, 171
Torrens, Major, 56, 88

Trade-unions, 166, 190, 191, 193 fl.; G-rand National, 195-197, 199

Trist, Nicholas P., 101

Trollope, Mrs , 154, 155-156

Troost, Gerard, 115, 129

^^Twelve Laws,^^ 156, 158

^'Twenty Fundamental Laws of Human Nature,” 214
Van Buren, Martin, 152, 153, 238
Warren, Josiah, 131, 185

Washington speeches, 99—100; reviewed in Cincinnati Gazette, 103

Waterwiteh, 93-94

Watson, James, 191, 192, 199

Wealth, distribution of, 85, 162, 164r-165

Wilberf orce, William, 31—32, 59

Wooler, Jonathan, Black Dwarf articles on Owen^s plan, 60-61
Wright, Fanny, 111, 127, 131, 132
Working Men’s Party of New York, 132